“I took a real hard look”: NASCAR’s “power” left Trackhouse co-owner “desiring” more as he expresses his mindset during charter negotiations 

Trackhouse Racing co-owner Justin Marks reflected on his thought process while signing the charter agreement for 2025-2031. He touched upon NASCAR's "power" and "influence" that didn't leave room for bargaining and hurried the signing.

For the last two years, NASCAR and the teams negotiated the terms of the charter. The garages demanded a say in the sport's governance, the charters to become indefinite, a slice of NASCAR's pie of business deals that includes any team or driver, and an increased cut from the revenue.

However, those demands were not met and NASCAR sent their proposal to the teams with a reported deadline of one week, until Friday, September 6 midnight. Moreover, the holdouts reportedly threatened to lose their existing charters if they failed to sign before Saturday.

Trackhouse Racing is among those who agreed to what NASCAR had to offer. The Concord-based outfit, co-owned by Pitbull, started as a single-car team. But have expanded to a three-car garage and will be fielding Shane van Gisbergen as their third driver next year.

Marks reflected that after two years of discussion, NASCAR was eager to close the deal and thus, they were in haste. The Trackhouse Racing co-owner talked about his mindset when the proposal was handed in and said (via Harvick Happy Hour on X).

"I was prepared for the day to come where NASCAR said, 'We're not, you know, we've moved here we've moved there, we've not moved here...this is the deal.' So, I took a real hard look at that and determined, 'Can I continue to be enthusiastic and bullish on the business that I'm able to build with this agreement?' I landed yeah, I can, because we've been successful over the last one," Marks said (0:19).

"There's a lot of elements in this one that are gonna be good. There are some elements that leave things to be desired for sure. NASCAR's got a lot of power, they have a lot of influence," he added.

NASCAR wanted to wind up the negotiations before the playoffs began at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

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Trackhouse Racing co-owner discusses the phone call that got him two Cup charters from Chip Ganassi's team

Trackhhouse Racing began their Cup Series operations with Daniel Suarez behind the #99 Chevy's wheel. However, they didn't run on a purchased charter but on a leased one, from Spire Motorsports. But after one year at NASCAR's Premier level, Justin Marks struck a deal with Chip Ganassi to acquire his team, and the two lucrative charters it possessed.

Chip Ganassi Racing sold its charters to Trackhouse Racing in 2021. The former team raked in 20 Cup Series victories and didn't go winless for three consecutive years before the takeover in 2022. They battled with setbacks as Kyle Larson's move to Hendrick Motorsports and the loss of DC Solar's sponsorship impacted the organization.

Marks revisited that he called Ganassi and got straight to the point about charters which landed him an opportunity to discuss. Speaking to Kevin Harvick on an episode of Happy Hour, Marks said:

"So I just dropped my kid at school and I was driving back to the house and I called him and I said, 'you know look I have big dreams, and big plans and big ambitious vision for my company," Marks told Kevin Harvick. "But I'm not gonna get there if I don't make a serious investment'."

"I just said 'you know if figuring out a way to do something here around your charters is something you're willing to have an adult discussion about, then I'd love to have the opportunity to have that discussion. It's basically how I framed it," he added.

Trackhouse Racing will field Daniel Suarez in the #99 Chevy, Ross Chastain in #1, and Shane van Gisbergen in #88 next year.