Sunday’s third annual NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway is a sort of homecoming for Trackhouse Racing founder Justin Marks who spent the first eight years of his life in St. Louis.
“If it weren’t for St. Louis, I am not sure I would be at Trackhouse Racing or that I would have ever fallen in love with racing,” said Marks, whose team will field Cup Series entries for Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez in St. Louis Sunday.
St. Louis is where Marks first caught the racing bug thanks to his grandfather.
The 43-year-old Marks was born at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and grew up in the Webster Groves/Kirkwood area. He still has family in the area and credits his grandfather Albert Wyrick from Keokuk, Iowa who first took the youngster to area dirt tracks. The two watched Midwestern racers like the Wallace brothers, Ken Schrader, Dick Trickle, and scores of others careen around the local tracks.
He saw the passion of the fans, the commitment from the drivers and the sheer enjoyment of speed. Marks’s father Michael moved the family to Silicon Valley, California when Justin was eight.
Although he left the Midwest, racing never left him. Marks decided to be a driver, hopping in a variety of sports cars with great success even reaching the pinnacle in 2009 when he joined four co-drivers winning the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
Marks ventured into NASCAR where he competed in 38 races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series posting four top-10s and capturing two pole awards. He made 35 starts in the Xfinity Series posting a win, three top-five and seven top-10s. He won the Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Aug. 13, 2016, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing.
He even entered the ultra-competitive Cup Series where he competed in six Cup Series races with a best finish of 12th place in the 2018 Daytona 500.
“I started to look around and realized if I wanted to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish in NASCAR it wasn’t going to be as a driver,” said Marks. “Deep down, I think I always felt that if I was going to forge a career in racing, it was going to be with an initiative like Trackhouse.”
He decided to retire from full-time competition and devote his energies to the business of motorsports and entertainment. He moved to Nashville in 2020 and created the Trackhouse Entertainment Group and its Trackhouse Racing division.
Timing his race team’s entry into NASCAR as the sport moved toward a new more economical model, Marks’ Trackhouse team began competition in 2021 as a single-car race team with Mexican driver Suárez behind the wheel and international entertainment superstar Pitbull as a partner.
The team achieved success on and off the track in 2021 running competitively and reaching out to non-traditional NASCAR audiences. Its multicultural pit crews, new sponsors and fresh openness were pillars of the Trackhouse philosophy.
Trackhouse Racing expanded to two teams when it acquired Chip Ganassi Racing’s NASCAR assets which brought in Chastain.
Since then the team has added three-time Supercars Champion Shane van Gisbergen, 2022 Craftsman Truck Series Champion Zane Smith and 17-year-old driving prodigy Connor Zilisch to the driver lineup.
Trackhouse has won seven Cup Series races with Chastain, Suárez and Van Gisbergen visiting victory lane. In January, Trackhouse Racing joined the MotoGP grid in 2024, bringing an American team back to the pinnacle of motorcycle racing for the first time in over a decade. With riders Miguel Oliviera and Raul Fernandez, Trackhouse Racing MotoGP is determined to be a competitive force on and off the track in partnership with Aprilia as its official factory-supported team.
Marks won the 2022 National Motorsports Press Association’s (NMPA) Myers Brothers Award during the 2022 NASCAR Awards in Nashville. The award recognizes individuals and/or groups that have provided outstanding contributions to stock car racing.
Marks won the 2022 “Byrnsie Award” from Fox. The award was established to celebrate an individual in the NASCAR Cup Series who showcases the same principles as the late Steve Byrnes embodied — preparation, teamwork and family within the garage area.
Marks pursuits are manyfold.
He is a co-manager of the Marks Family Foundation, with several different philanthropic endeavors. The family, led by father Michael Marks, has been a successful private equity leader in Silicon Valley for years. Justin owns the Trackhouse Motorplex (go-kart) racing facility near Charlotte and is an investor in the CARS Tour.
Marks now splits time between the NASCAR team’s North Carolina race shop and his home near Nashville where he and his wife Erin are raising two daughters.
And it all began in St. Louis.
- Busch Light Iconic: In honor of this week’s race taking place right outside of the hometown of Busch Light, Ross Chastain will be bringing Busch Light’s ‘Iconic’ paint scheme back to the track. Chastain will be racing for the mountains in the No. 1 car, representing locals’ favorite beer with the brand’s well-known vibrant mountain landscape design across the full car in Busch Light’s recognizable blue and white colors.
- Busch Light Sweepstakes: Busch Light will be giving fans another chance to win this week with their #BreakForBusch #Sweepstakes. Follow @BuschBeer on X and tweet using the hashtag’s #BreakForBusch #Sweepstakes for the chance to win $2,000.
- Meet Chastain: On Saturday, beginning at 2:30 p.m. local time, Chastain will appear at The Biergarten, 1200 Lynch Street, St. Louis, Missouri. Appearance is open to the public and will feature a Q&A and giveaways.
- Chastain a Gateway Winner: The Alva, Florida native won the Gateway Truck Series race in June 2019 while driving the No. 45 for Al Niece and Niece Motorsports. Chastain led 21 laps in route to his second career Truck Series win.
- Gateway Stats: The Chevrolet driver has two Cup Series starts at the 1.25-mile oval located just outside St. Louis. Chastain has qualified in the top-10 for both starts and has a best finish of eighth.
- Before Gateway: This week Chastain will be heading to New York to continue the Protect Your Melon highway safety campaign with the New York Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee. He will visit Mt. Sinai High School and A-Tech High School to educate students about the importance of buckling up, front and back, every time. On Friday, he will head to Mooseheart on behalf of Moose Fraternity. Mooseheart is a residential childcare facility located west of Chicago.
- Chastain to Run Late Model: Chastain will drive a CRA late model for Rackley W.A.R. at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on Thursday, June 27 with support from Tootsie’s. The race at the half-mile track kicks off a weekend of motorsports in Nashville with the Cup Series race at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway on Sunday, June 30 capping off the weekend.
- Season Stats: Chastain has earned five top-10s in 14 races so far this season along with 118 laps led. He’s currently 10th in driver points.
- NASCAR: Full Speed: Catch Chastain in the five-episode docuseries NASCAR: Full Speed on Netflix. The series documented portions of Chastain’s 2023 season on and off the track. All five episodes are currently available on Netflix.
- Last Weekend at Charlotte: Chastain qualified seventh in the Memorial Day weekend Coca-Cola 600. He led 10 laps in the No. 1 Chevrolet and earned two bonus points before rain shortened the originally scheduled 400-lap race to 249 laps and Chastain finished eighth.
- 2023 Season Recap: Chastain won at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway in June and at the Phoenix Raceway season finale in November. He posted 10 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes in his third fulltime Cup season. The Alva, Florida native finished ninth in points.
Chastain Quotes:
How challenging is track like Gateway that has completely opposite corners?
“It’s exactly that. You get to one end and drive it completely different at the other end. Long straightaways, tight corners, really flat turns 3 and 4, a little more banking and a unique line in turns 1 and 2. It’s a one of one track. There’s no where else like Gateway. I’ve been there in the truck series before. I remember watching truck races way back in the day, Xfinity Series races way back in the day. Gateway was a staple of those series and for some reason I really remember that track. Everything about it makes it a one of one.”
How do you find speed at Gateway?
“If I knew that, I would be in victory lane every time. I don’t know. You can’t drive a slow car fast. You want your car to be turning well. I’m a simple man. I want the car to turn. I want it to do what I ask it to do and not have to manipulate it so much inside. It needs to do something similar in both ends. You can’t get in turns 1 and 2 with the extra banking doing one thing and then getting down to the other end and it be another.”
Can you take me back to your first time driving at Gateway?
“My first time driving at Gateway was in a truck for Jay Robinson. The Xfinity Series was off and he asked me if I wanted to go drive a truck and run it until its out of gas, get laps on the track. We actually made second round of qualifying back then. It was a crazy memory to have that and then come back the next year and win the race in the No. 45 truck.”
Why does it seem to race much more like a short track than an intermediate?
“The straightaways are longer and the corners are shorter than intermediates. It’s more like a paperclip versus a tri-oval or quad-oval that we run on the intermediate.”
- Last week in the Coca-Cola 600: Daniel Suárez ran in the top-10 at Charlotte through the first two stages, but a pit road penalty dropped him back to 32nd only laps before rain brought out a red flag stopping the race on lap 240 of 400. Suárez had climbed to 24th when the race was canceled.
- 2023 Race in St. Louis: Suárez finished seventh last year’s 300-mile NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis. He battled in the top 10 and often in the top-five throughout before logging his fifth top-10 finish of the 2023 season. Lightning in the area stopped action after the opening laps for 1 hour 45 minutes. Suárez finished 10th and fifth in the first two stages.
- Choice Privileges®: Choice Privileges®, the award-winning rewards program of Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), makes its second appearance as a primary sponsor with Daniel Suárez and Trackhouse Racing on Sunday. As part of the continued reinvigoration of the program, Choice Privileges® is offering exclusive VIP experience passes for races throughout the season. Choice Privileges® is increasingly strengthening rewards and opportunities for members following the successful college football, basketball, baseball and hockey experiences previously offered.
- Join Choice Privileges®: Throughout the season Choice Privileges® is offering exclusive redeemable experiences for members. The new experiences will include: access to the Trackhouse garage and pit road prior to the race; a tour of the garage and pit road; meet and greet with the pit crew and driver, Daniel Suarez; and pre-race hospitality with food and drink. For more information or to enroll in Choice Privileges®, visit www.choicehotels.com/choice-privileges.
- Choice Privileges® Schedule: Choice Privileges® schedule as the primary sponsor on Suárez’s No. 99 includes New Hampshire Motor Speedway on June 23, Richmond (Va.) Raceway on Aug. 11 and the Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Oct. 13.
- Atlanta Victory: At Atlanta, he and runner-up Ryan Blaney were separated by 0.003 seconds at the finish line. It was the fourth-closest finish in series history, and with third-place Kyle Busch just 0.007 seconds behind the winner, it also stands as the closest finish among three cars in the history of auto racing.
- Trackhouse Victories: Atlanta marked Trackhouse Racing’s seventh win in the NASCAR Cup Series, and first at Atlanta. Chastain owns four victories, Suárez two and one for Shane van Gisbergen.
- Mexico Series Victory: Suárez won the 150-lap Mexico Series race at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Feb. 3. It was his 11th victory.
- First Mexican to Win in Cup: Suárez became the first driver from Mexico (Monterrey) to win in the NASCAR Cup Series on June 12, 2022, at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.
- International Driver: He is one of six drivers not from the United States to win a NASCAR Cup Series race: Shane van Gisbergen (New Zealand), Marcos Ambrose (Australia), Juan Pablo Montoya (Colombia), Earl Ross (Canada) and Mario Andretti (Italy). Ambrose, Montoya, and Suárez own two victories each.
- Cup Career Highlights: Suárez owns two victories (Sonoma 2022 and Atlanta 2024) and three Busch Light Pole Awards – Pocono (Pa.) Raceway July 2018, Kentucky Speedway July 2019, and on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway August 2023.
- English is a Second Language: Suárez came to America to race. He did not speak English when he arrived in Buffalo, New York. He is the only Spanish-speaking driver in the NASCAR Cup Series.
- Suárez Passes Citizenship Test: The Monterrey, Mexico native passed the United States Citizenship test on April 29 in Charlotte and will take the Oath of Allegiance at a naturalization ceremony in the next few weeks when he will become a dual citizen of Mexico and the United States.
Suárez Quotes:
Can you repeat last year’s performance in St. Louis?
“Last year the entire weekend was very solid for us. We barely missed the second round in qualifying and really, we missed it because of me and not because of the car. The car was capable of advancing. In the race, the car was strong right away. I hope we are as strong again this weekend.”
What are your thoughts preparing for the playoffs in September?
“This is what I told my team: We have two months to figure it out. Two months to figure it out, and I say two months because I would like to have one month before the playoffs, to have the mentality of playoffs. Because if we think that we’re going to go into the playoffs and flip a switch and just be great, that won’t happen. No matter who it is, that doesn’t exist. So we have to just be ready when the time comes.”
Trackhouse Racing PR
