Forget Top Gun Maverick, in the world of NASCAR it’s Team Trackhouse that feels like the feelgood movie of the summer. In a Cup Series where giants like Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske field their star-studded jet jockeys, Trackhouse is the plucky little squadron that put them all in its sights and shot ’em down in flames.
Formed by Justin Marks, an ex-race car driver himself in GTs, ARCA, Trucks and Xfinity Series, and partnered by Armando Christian Perez, aka the rapper Pitbull, and former DEI man Ty Norris, it’s come a long way in just 18 months.
Marks put his faith in Mexico’s Daniel Suarez, the 2016 Xfinity Series champion and only non-American born driver to win a major NASCAR title. After joining the Cup Series with Gibbs, Suarez struggled to make an impression and his career at the top level appeared to be floundering as he hopped from team to team and slid further down the grid – before Trackhouse started to happen.
Daniel Suarez, Gaunt Brothers Racing, Toyota Camry Toyota Certified Used Vehicles
Photo by: Russell LaBounty / NKP / Motorsport Images
“I knew in 2020 that I had hit bottom,” Suarez admits of his season with minnow team Gaunt Brothers Racing. “I have only hit rock bottom in my life a couple of times, and that was one of them. In my mind, it couldn’t get any worse than that.
“Since I joined the Cup Series, after winning the Xfinity title, it was never stable, it was never what I wanted. It just didn’t feel right. So 2020 was my year to reset. It was horrible on the racetrack but it made me who I am now, it made me tougher. I knew it couldn’t get any worse. After that, Trackhouse came to the table.”
Trackhouse was starting from ground zero as a startup team, in the final season of the Gen-7 NASCAR machinery. After a frustrating beginning in the 2021 Daytona 500, when Suarez was taken out in the first big wreck of the marquee race, a fourth-placed finish on the dirt in Bristol showed this diminutive team’s appetite for running with the big boys.
This was followed up by a handful of top 10 performances that were highly impressive for a one-car team – a vast improvement from his “rock bottom” season. Things were looking up.
After a difficult few years in Cup, Suarez took a leap of faith with Trackhouse
Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images
The true game changer happened in August, when Marks announced that Trackhouse had purchased Chip Ganassi Racing’s NASCAR…
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