NASCAR CUP SERIES: ALLY 400

June 25, 2023

Justin Marks

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We've now been joined by the car owner of the No. 1 Chevrolet, that is Justin Marks.

Justin, how does it feel to win in your hometown?

JUSTIN MARKS: Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing for this company. Last couple weeks have been a little bit tough for us. We got so many great talented people, two great race car drivers, amazing partners. I think what we're doing is special, feels special.

It's hard for new teams to come in this sport at this level and be successful. But we've got two incredible race car drivers. I think Ross showed today that he's really in rare air in this series, at this level.

He's learning, he's maturing. It's an incredible moment for us. Everybody that works on this team, we build these cars, work on these cars in North Carolina, but this is a Middle Tennessee company. Ty and Matt and Dean, we run this company out of Nashville, Tennessee. We have great partners like Tootsies in Nashville, Tennessee, some great support. All the Worldwide Express people here this weekend, what an incredible weekend for them. Carson winning the truck race, Ross getting his first pole, putting the performance on and winning this race.

We lost Rob Rose a year ago here in Nashville. He was such a believer in Trackhouse and this company, Worldwide Express' partnership in this company. For us to put a weekend on like this, it's emotional. I'm so proud of each and every person in this company.

Just watching Ross do what Ross does, what he's capable of doing out there, what a bright future we have as a company. Tonight I think we just saw what kind of driver he is. It's an amazing moment for our company.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. In light of everything that's been going on for the few weeks since Darlington, how big a win was this?

JUSTIN MARKS: I mean, it's big. I've said this a couple times today. There was not really a moment, a sit-down moment, with Ross. It wasn't like, Do this or do that.

I have been going through this experience as a Cup owner alongside Ross as a Cup driver for the first time. He's made mistakes. I've made mistakes. We're learning together.

I think after Darlington, there was such an opportunity to have such a moment for our team that I think we just sat down and go, How do we make sure that we don't miss these opportunities? When we've got opportunities to make statements and win races, with the speed we have in our race cars, how good everybody is, let's make sure we're making decisions to put ourselves in a position to capitalize and have nights like we did tonight.

We talked about that the last couple weeks. It's a huge moment because, I think I've said it sort of many times today, Brad went through this, Kevin Harvick went through this, Tony, Carl. You have guys that show up that have so much speed and aggression, they have to learn how to compete at this level and compete in this series.

That's the process that Ross is going through right now. You look at a race like tonight, I mean, he just did everything right, everything perfectly. He had a super fast car. The conditions changed from day to night. They ran three-wide for three laps, which was incredible. He did everything right.

To answer your question, I think it's a huge win for us because I think it's a big moment for him and this team personally because it says that we have an opportunity to win so many races and compete and win for championships in this series. Such a bright future ahead of us. We're all, like, super motivated and inspired for the future.

Q. Saying something publicly, what you said about Ross following Darlington, do you wish you had that back?

JUSTIN MARKS: What did I say?

Q. On Sirius about having a talk with him, how that took on a life of its own from there.

JUSTIN MARKS: I don't remember exactly what I said. It wasn't boss and employee, it was friend and friend. It was like, Hey, let's look at this opportunity we've had. Let's just work together to try to make sure we're making the right decisions here, taking the most advantage of our opportunity.

For me, I mean, I talked to Rick Hendrick at Darlington. I talked to Roger a little bit, not about Ross, but just in general about stuff. These guys, they've got decades of experience with lots of different drivers. They've been through different eras of the sport. They've seen drivers come in with lots of talent, making different kinds of decisions. They have all that experience.

For me, I don't have that experience. I don't have that bank of knowledge or whatever. I'm kind of going through with him, Man, I just want you to go, I want to tell you to not change anything, let's just go.

It's complicated because we have to work with Chevrolet, with our key partners, obviously Hendrick and RCR, great partners of our team. We have to make sure we don't fracture that partnership, that we can all work well together.

That conversation was like, Let's work hard, the both of us, to just not throw away amazing opportunities that we have. I'll help you as much as I can. You try to help me. Let's go through this process together. That's what the conversation was. It turned into me sitting him down and telling him something, which is not the truth. That's not what happened.

Q. Your two other wins came on a road course and superspeedway. How nice is it to get a win on a traditional track?

JUSTIN MARKS: It's big because the circumstances around the first two wins, obviously they're great, it's hard to win these races, but the road courses are difficult. At Talladega he drove a great race, had a great opportunity coming into the stripe there to win that one.

To be able to come out here and be fast in practice, qualify on the pole, manage a great race from start to finish, from daytime to night, changing track conditions, I think it's a very powerful statement for this team, for the 1 team, for Ross personally.

It's probably from a performance standpoint on the 1 team the best win that we've had. It sits right up there with the 99 at Sonoma last year.

Q. We talk about the growth of your drivers to become championship-level drivers. You said you've made mistakes, are learning, too. What have you learned how to become a championship-caliber team owner?

JUSTIN MARKS: Well, I'm still in the middle of that process. I mean, I'm still early in that process.

There's a very sort of diplomatic and political paradigm that exists in this garage area. We're the new challengers. It's an interesting tribal philosophy I think that's on display here that's very fundamental to human psychology. I pay attention to that.

I think the difficult thing is when you've got established powerhouses here, then somebody new shows up, it upsets that apple cart a little bit, people respond to it in different ways. For me it's been learning how to manage the landscape of those responses.

I think at the end of the day we have to stay fundamental to what our mission is, and that's making sure we're doing the job for Chevrolet that we need to do, making sure we are good partners with our key partners, with Hendrick and with Childress, and doing the best job that we can as a team.

It's very different on the racetrack than it is in the garage area. It's very different in the garage area than it is in business meetings during the week. For me the process has been learning how to sort of navigate all that.

But at the end of the day a lot of it is sort of navigating that noise and sort of going, Look, we've got 142 people that are working really, really hard at Trackhouse that want to win for Trackhouse and deliver for our partners, try to do a great job. It's sort of learning how to balance that job with the fact that we have to be good partners for the other teams out there that we work with, just learn to sort of exist, put ourselves in positions where we have all the tools at our disposal to come out and do the things like we did tonight.

I hope that made sense. I waned philosophical there, but...

Q. (Question about street course racing.)

JUSTIN MARKS: We did that at Pensacola. Did you and I speak about it at Pensacola?

Q. Tennessee. We were talking street course racing. At the time you first planted the seed to look at it holistically not as a race but an overall event. We're a week away from Chicago. We see the foundation they've planted there. In your eyes, what is going to make that a successful event or not?

JUSTIN MARKS: Well, I mean, I'm a huge fan of street racing because I said it here a few hours ago, I think we're living in a time where we have to make what we do as a sport, as a business, we have to make that as accessible and easy to as many people as possible. We can't have people work hard to try to find us, try to come to our races, do what we do.

When you go street racing, you take your product to the people. You take it right to a city. You have a lot of people that come to the race that aren't race fans but they want to see what it's all about, what's going on. From that standpoint, I'm a huge fan of street racing.

I think it's a big unknown as far as how next week is going to go. I think street racing requires a lot of restraint. It requires a lot of patience and intelligent race craft.

My hope is we have an event where there's a lot of green flag racing. I think the potential is there that we don't. I think all the competitors in the sport, everybody, is going to have to do a lot of work this week to make sure that everybody is prepared to race in a forum like that, in an environment like that.

But in general, I'm really excited about the street racing concept. It's kind of how racing -- it is how racing started. Automobile racing started 100 years ago, 125 years ago, was putting cars on roads and seeing who could get the fastest from one point to another.

That's to me the purest form of the sport. You put souped-up cars on a street and see how fast they can go down the street. I think it's a beautiful thing from that standpoint.

There's just so many unknowns about where the sport is today and everything. I am hopeful that it's going to be a really, really great weekend. I think it has the potential to be a great weekend. It's why I'm racing for Jockey, Chevrolet on Saturday because I'm excited to be a part of it, because I'm a believer in that concept.

As far as expectations, how I think it will go, I've talked to a lot of drivers the last couple of weeks. The consensus is nobody knows how it's going to go. That probably bodes well for all of us.

Q. After you won Talladega, I asked what the significance of being able to say you won Talladega was for the Trackhouse brand. Speaking at the local level, what does it do for Trackhouse as a brand and company to be able to go to your partners, go into the world and say you've won in your backyard?

JUSTIN MARKS: It's actually important for us. We've got a lot of initiatives in the company that are going to start taking shape over the next year that are very Middle Tennessee and Nashville activated and local.

I've not been shy about saying the fact that Trackhouse as a brand I've really tried to create something that is going to be scaleable and can grow to be beyond stockcar racing.

For us to be able to win here, it's really, really important for us because we're working on a lot of really exciting things in Nashville, around the businesses in Nashville. It allows us to continue that narrative, telling that story. From that standpoint, it's hugely important.

I think we have a very exciting future in this town. I can't elaborate too much on it, but we've got some really, really cool things that I'm excited about growing as a business.

We really want to be a sports and entertainment brand. We want to be able to scale beyond the NASCAR Cup Series but keep our racing DNA fundamental to that growth initiative.

Winning here, this is the race that I want to win more than any of the races besides the one they hold in Florida and the one they hold in Arizona. So it's a big day for us.

Q. Daniel Suarez, they had a pretty active 24 hours. Talk about what that entire group had to do.

JUSTIN MARKS: I'm glad you asked that question. I don't want it to get lost on anybody. The 99 had a hell of a weekend. A lot of speed in practice. Probably had an opportunity to qualify on the front row in qualifying.

I think it's a testament, the fact how hard they worked to get the backup ready, then to fall to the back. Basically had a top 10 car, finished 12th place. That's something that I think it's important to focus on because it really shows the fight that we have as a team and how hard those guys work and how focused and dedicated Daniel is.

A great points day for Daniel. Great finish for that team given the headwinds and circumstances they had to fight against.

Really, really proud of them. It was a great show that we put on for Tootsies. Obviously Tootsies is on that car, sponsor. Everybody that was here from Tootsies was excited to see him come through the field, pass the cars.

I think it's indicative of who we are as a company, how hard we work, we don't give up, there's always an opportunity to do something great.

Q. At one point when you were putting this stuff together, there was speculation you might actually base the team here. Is that still on the table?

JUSTIN MARKS: Yeah, I mean, I really wanted to do that. I did. The original idea was to build a shop here and basically put out an all points bulletin to the industry and say we pay for moves, these are the positions we're hiring for.

That all changed when I called Chip Ganassi and talked to him about acquiring his team. He had so many great people and processes that worked in that company. At the same time Chevrolet was building their tech center in Concord, really investing a lot of people locally in Charlotte to support their NASCAR teams. It just became too heavy of a burden to try to lift a company of that stature up and move it to Nashville. I was afraid we were going to lose too many people. That was a fork in the road that we had to kind of take the other direction on.

What happened there really is let's lean into the great processes and partnerships we have in Charlotte from a competition standpoint. In Nashville let's lean into more of the other side of the of the business, which I am really excited about, from a music standpoint, sports and entertainment standpoint, so that is kind of where we are at right now.

Q. Today you had a concert behind your hauler. Another Trackhouse initiative thinking outside the box? Whose idea was that?

JUSTIN MARKS: I mean, that's just us thinking about how to create an experience for our partners and give amplification of our brand the best that we can. Always constantly thinking outside of the box.

For decades these teams have entertained the most important VIPs at the back of the haulers before the race just sort of standing around. We spent 2021 doing that. Every race we would stand back there going, How can we make this better and more exciting, whatever?

It's just sort of the constant process of thinking about how we can build a great experience for our partners, build an experience for our fans, build a brand.

The way it's come together has been amazing. When you walk through the garage area, you see the guy playing his guitar, you see the screens. That's exactly what we're trying to do as a company, is just be different, be exciting, set a vibe.

Really when our partners come, all of our guests, our drivers and employees and fans, to be attracted to what we're doing. It's just cool and different. Helps enhance the experience.

THE MODERATOR: Justin, congratulations. Thank you for spending some time with us.

JUSTIN MARKS: Thanks, everybody.