FANTASY NASCAR Racin

JUSTIN MARKS - 3/25/1981 -
ARMANDO CHRISTIAN "PITBULL" PEREZ- 1/5/1981
TRACKHOUSE RACING
Another new team for 2020 is Trackhouse Racing. Justin Marks was born in St. Louis, Missouri. During his youth, he went with his grandfather (who lived in Iowa), to see local Midwest racers such as Dick Trickle, Ken Schrader, and the Wallace brothers battle on dirt tracks, which gave him the racing bug. Marks attended race school while in high school and in 1998 competed in his first race, in the street stock division at Altamont Raceway Park in Tracy, California. At 18, Marks entered the SCCA Regional Racing Series, and later the Speed World Challenge Series. With success in the SCCA, Marks moved to the Rolex Sports Car

Series GT Class in 2004 where he met good friend Joey Hand. Switching between the GT class and the World Challenge, Marks raced up four wins, eight podiums, and thirteen Top 10s between the two series. In 2006, Marks left road racing to pursue a career in NASCAR. In 2006, Marks raced for RAB Racing in the ARCA Series, driving their #65. In 2007 he was picked up by Germain Racing of the Craftsman Truck Series to drive their #03 truck. In 2008, Marks raced in the Truck Series, the Xfinity Series, and the ARCA Series for a number of teams. In 2013, Marks made his Cup Series debut at Sonoma Raceway in the 2013 Toyota/Save Mart 350, driving the #7 of Tommy Baldwin Racing, substituting for Dave Blaney. Over the next several years Marks raced in all three of NASCAR's premier series for various owners. He last competed in the

WeatherTech Sports Car Championship driving the #93 for Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian in the GT Daytona class. On August 14, 2019, Marks confirmed the creation of his own team, Trackhouse Racing, and revealed that traveled racing executive Ty Norris had been brought on to help run the team. At that time, Marks had yet to strike a formal alliance with any manufacturer or team, but already had one potential sponsor lined up. He had also yet to purchase any equipment. From his ownership of a go-kart track and other family business ventures, Marks had the financial wherewithal to purchase a team without other means. Marks aimed to be an unconventional team owner, with plans to use his team ownership platform as an advocate for STEM education. (SEM stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics). On October 7,

the team announced a full-time driver in 2021 with Daniel Suárez as driver. Later, the team announced that it leased a charter from Spire Motorsports to guarantee itself an entry into every 2021 race. Trackhouse aligned with Richard Childress Racing as an engine provider for 2021 as well as operating on RCR's campus in Welcome, North Carolina. Marks chose the #99 as the team number to pay tribute to Carl Edwards. On November 13, former JR Motorsports crew chief Travis Mack was announced as the #99's crew chief. The team didn't expect to have a great results in 2021. This was more a year to get their feet wet; and work out any issues, before the NextGen car was

introduced. Suarez had a "respectable" year, as the new team got up and running. They finished fourth at Bristol on the dirt for a season's best. They also finished in the top ten at Nashville, Dover, and Texas. If there was one team the entire NASCAR industry didn’t see coming in the 2022 Cup Series season, it was Trackhouse Racing. In its second year, the organization made its mark in a big way, from Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez earning their first career Cup wins. The Trackhouse Racing story in 2022 was unquestionably a major highlight for the Cup Series. Both Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez served notice to the competition early in the season, with the pair combining

for five top-5 finishes in the first five races. Chastain scored three consecutive top-5s at Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Atlanta, before his breakthrough at Austin and Circuit of the Americas, where his aggressive last-lap move on AJ Allmendinger and Alex Bowman just a few turns from the finish line was dramatic and historic, scoring the first win in the organization’s short existence. A couple of months later, Suarez got in on the action, running a dominant race in wine country and winning his first-ever career Cup trophy at Sonoma. Both drivers made it into the playoffs, with Chastain advancing all the way to the Championship 4 and coming up just short behind winner Joey Logano. While Chastain’s aggressive driving allowed him to win in the Lone Star State, that same style also ruffled more than a few feathers throughout the season. Martin Truex Jr. had his first of several run-ins with the #1 car at Dover in May.

A month later at Gateway, Denny Hamlin fell victim to the watermelon farmer’s impatience and got sent into the wall at Gateway. Unfortunately, Chastain was just getting started. He had additional incidents with Truex and Hamlin and added another JGR victim to the list with Kyle Busch at Richmond, who converted the Trackhouse driver’s name into a verb, suggesting he had been “Chastained.” Others were unhappy with the #1 car at some point, including Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott, who blamed the Trackhouse driver for ending his championship hopes at Phoenix in an incident that spun the 2020 champ and sent him into the wall, although most outside of the Hendrick Motorsports

camp agreed Chastain wasn’t to blame. When NASCAR fans look back on the 2022 Cup Series season, Trackhouse, despite Chastain’s moves upsetting multiple drivers, will be remembered as one of the best stories of the year because it was an unproven team that showed winning is possible in the new Next Gen car, which is what the governing body intended when it went with the new car. And, of course, you can’t forget Chastain’s final-lap move at Martinsville. That video game move will go down as one of the coolest moments in NASCAR history, and the driver has to be given credit for the guts to do it, and then pulling it off. In 2022; the teams two drivers compiled three wins; and added 21 Top 5 finishes along with 34 Top 10's. Certainly a strong showing for an upstart team. Like 2022, Ross Chastain would claim two wins in the Cup series. The first came at Nashville and locked him into the Chase. He also had a pair of second place finishes; one was during the playoffs at Texas. But after that, he was in a crash at Talladega and was eliminated from the Chase after the Round of 12. At Phoenix, Chastain had a strong car and led 157 of the 312 laps to get the win. Team-mate Daniel Suarez had a miserable year. He had a best finish of second, at Atlanta. But he only had three top five finishes. He only had ten top ten finishes, not good compared to the previous year. What a difference a year makes. Instead of progressing, Suárez regressed, so much so that his top-five finishes were cut in half, down from six to three. Instead of building on his impressive year where he led 280 laps, he held onto the lead for less than 50. Combine those stats with the fact that he produced six DNFs — which is two more than he did in the previous year and the same amount he had in his rookie (2017) year. After the season, the team said “We’re addressing a handful of things around that team, and the raw speed was there. The execution this year on the 99 was unacceptable, quite honestly.” TrackHouse Racing signed a pair of emerging, talented drivers in New Zealand-born speedster Shane van Gisbergen, and Zane Smith from the NASCAR Truck Series. So it appears Suarez and his team will have to step it up in 2024 if he wants to keep his ride. Van Gisbergen made his first ever Cup start, driving for TrackHouse, at Chicago. This was NASCAR’s first ever street course race, and the V8 SuperCar champion parked the car in victory circle in his first ever start. It was the first time in 60 years that a driver had won in his first ever Cup start. Van Gisbergen will race full time for Kaulig Racing in the Xfinity series in 2024; and is expected to make at least seven Cup starts.