Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Trackhouse Owner Justin Marks Says The Business of NASCAR is Scary For Teams, Talks Connor Zilisch & Parting Ways With Daniel Suarez | Lights Out With John Roberts

Transcript

Trackhouse Owner Justin Marks Says The Business of NASCAR is Scary For Teams, Talks Connor Zilisch & Parting Ways With Daniel Suarez | Lights Out With John Roberts · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Owning a NASCAR Cup Series team is a is a very difficult
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  business and it's a scary business.
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  And it's a multi $1,000,000 business where every day you're
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  exposed and any, any kind of change in economic headwinds or
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  one of your sponsors gets a new CMO that likes baseball more
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  than racing or something like that.
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  I mean, any one of those little things is a potential
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  existential crisis to your business.
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  And it's a difficult way to live.
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  It's a difficult way to live in a sport that's worth, you know,
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  5 to $7 billion and has $2 billion of revenue a year.
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  When you look at that stuff, you go like the league and the team.
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  Between the league and the teams, no one should be scared
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  and no one should be, you know, worried about tomorrow.
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  It is time, time to go lights out with Track House team owner
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  Justin Marks. Justin, so glad to talk to you,
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  man. There's been a lot going on in
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  the world of racing right now, but I think one of the biggest
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  things right now is this phenomenon we're seeing with
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  driver Connor Zilich and what he's been able to do.
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  I know he still has a lot of work to do in terms of getting
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  that championship in the Xfinity, but he's coming to you
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  guys next year full time in the Cup Series.
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  How excited are you to have a talent like this and and seeing
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  all the opportunities that could come with?
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  Yeah, I look, there's a lot of lot of positive energy in the
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  building. I mean people, you know, we know
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  what's coming. I mean, it's, you know, a new
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  driver is not the only change that we're going to have next
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  year. I mean, we're going to have a
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  lot of new people, new processes and tools and procedures and
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  totally kind of like flipping the switch and restarting this
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  business, you know, to get it retooled for for success in the
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  future. But being able to, you know,
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  have all that going on in the background sort of all day every
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  single day and then be able to turn the TV on on on Saturdays
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  and watch Connor do what he's doing is, is just incredible.
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  I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot of buzz in the
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  building, Chevrolet, the partners, you know, everybody's
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  super, super excited because it's been so long, I think since
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  we've seen somebody with, you know, with his level of talent
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  and execution and, and just getting the job done at his age
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  and level of experience where you just know that the ceiling
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  is just so, so high for him. So you know, what it is, is it's
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  a lot of excitement, but it's a lot of it's a huge, tremendous,
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  you know, like it's a huge responsibility on us at track
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  House to make sure that we're doing everything that we can
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  today, that when he, you know, a talent like him gets here, he's
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  got all the opportunity to succeed that he could ever want.
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  So we're working hard on on, you know, our plans for next year
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  and and making sure he's got fast cars and and Ross and SVG.
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  But but it's pretty special. We knew he was going to be good,
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  but but watching him go out there and learn as fast as he is
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  and executing as well as he is, it's very exciting for everybody
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  in the company. So just the other side of that
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  thing, and I know it's probably easy for somebody from the
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  outside looking in saying, you know, why don't you just stick
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  with Daniel Suarez because of his talent.
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  He's one one of the nicest guys you'd ever hoped to meet.
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  But you talked about your responsibility as a team owner
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  and as a team to put your best foot forward.
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  But but it still has to be a difficult decision to make a
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  move like that, isn't? It it is, yeah.
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  And, and you know, thank you for for, for saying that and asking
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  that question because not a lot of people ask that question.
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  And that's one of the things that's that's difficult about
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  this business is you just read the headlines.
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  You just see kind of we put ourselves in front of everybody
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  in those media centers and those interviews and everything when
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  kind of like everything is going right and we're excited.
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  And that's like an easy lift. But the big lift is when you
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  have to make difficult decisions.
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  And, and it is, it is difficult on me because Daniel, you know,
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  Daniel's was really like the second or third person that we
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  called to be a part of this program before we even really
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  had a way to go racing in 2021. And he's, he's been such a, such
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  a huge part of, of track house. I mean, with that being said,
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  we, we have grown and you know, this rocket has taken out at a,
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  a clip that I didn't, I didn't think was, was really gonna
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  happen. I mean, you know, the fact that
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  just four years really after starting the business, we're A3
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  car team, we got thirteen wins on the board, a Phoenix
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  appearance, you know, all the partners that we do, a Moto GP
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  team, you know, investors and and kind of the future that
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  we're looking at. So it's like we've really just
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  just gone on this incredible, like New York rise as a
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  business. And you know, there's just
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  unfortunately some attrition along the way.
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  I mean, five years over probably $100 million invested, you know,
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  2, two wins for Daniel, like great partnerships and great
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  moments, you know, when he was driving for a back marker team
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  in 2020. And I, I take a lot of pride and
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  feel, you know, forever grateful that, that he said yes and
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  joining us and, and feel really, really happy and proud that that
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  the wins the Cup Series wins that Daniel has he, he has with
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  us. But you know, the the business
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  changed and, and partners changed and it's a performance
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  race business, performance based business.
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  And you know, we need to get, we need to get all of our cars in
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  Victory Lane. We need to get all of our cars
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  in the playoffs. And you know, ultimately it came
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  time to to make a difficult decision.
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  So that's a part of the job that is difficult.
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  And people, you know, especially when you're close to somebody
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  like I am with with Daniel and Julia, and it's been, you know,
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  it's been, it's been tough, but it's just, it's just part of the
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  business. Ultimately, at the end of the
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  day, you know, the most important thing is the success
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  for track house and, and we signed Connor and, and, you
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  know, watching, watching Connor and his, his, you know, how fast
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  he learned and how quickly he was heading towards the Cup
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  series, we just, you just got to make room for him.
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  So it's a tough deal, but it's kind of part of the game.
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  I mean, it's always been and always will be.
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  And, and it's part of what we signed up for when we when we do
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  these jobs. Just I think also one thing that
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  sometimes flies a little bit under the radar in terms of
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  Connor Zilich, his talent on the racetrack is what you can't deny
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  that because the performance speaks for itself.
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  But this young man, but the way he has handled some of the
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  adversity on the racetrack, the way he can go from the back of
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  the pack and and just keep his head together, he's so mature
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  beyond his years. And that's important for a
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  driver, right? Because you can have all the raw
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  talent in the world, but if you can't keep your head together
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  underneath that helmet, that the talent doesn't mean anything.
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  Yeah, that's right. I mean, it, it's, it's about it.
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  You know, it's like there's a lot of fast people.
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  Obviously Connor's speed in his town is special.
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  He's an outlier. But, but you know, what I've
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  been saying is that there's a lot of fast people and there's a
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  lot of fast kids that are 1819 years old in the United States.
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  And, and really what makes the difference is, you know, rate of
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  adaptability. It's, it's, you know, maturity
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  and approach. It's making sure that the, you
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  know, the, the approach to work during the week is, is such that
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  he can compete at a very high level when it comes time to do
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  that on the weekends. And, and, you know, whether it's
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  just innate ability or the way he was raised or the environment
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  that was put around him when he was growing up racing at the
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  racetrack, He's just really got a handle on on that stuff.
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  And, and you know, as he, as he's going to need it as he
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  comes into the Cup series, because you know, the Cup series
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  is, you know, it's tough as you know, I mean, you know, you're,
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  if you're in last place, you're racing someone that's won Cup
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  races before. And so it's, it's, it's very,
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  very difficult, difficult racing.
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  It's a grind. It's very data intensive.
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  They're long races, they're hot races.
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  You got to be fit, you got to be focused, all that stuff.
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  And you know, with somebody like, you know, with what he's
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  demonstrated so far and his ability sort of prioritized, you
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  know, what, what elements of preparation make the most
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  difference and and show up the most on the race weekend.
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  He's really leaned into those. You know, he's a 19 year old
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  kid. Let him be a 19 year old kid.
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  But also balance that with the fact that, you know, look,
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  you're a professional athlete at top level of game of the game
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  right now. And, you know, it's our job to
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  put the resources around him to put him in a position to to
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  succeed. But I think those intangibles,
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  those things that are difficult to teach, maturity, work life
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  balance, attitude, things like that.
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  He's he's really, really in a, in a special spot and all those.
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  So it's really exciting. The affirmation though, you guys
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  must feel about what you've done in terms of working it is it is
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  very difficult to compete at all in the Cup Series.
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  We know that. But you guys got 2 drivers right
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  now in that championship hunt in in Rawson SVG.
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  That's got to say a lot a for the company.
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  But first of all, beyond just having those guys in the
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  playoffs right now to be going for the championship, that too
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  Justin must make a lot of excitement around the building
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  right now. I know it's real difficult to
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  compete for a championship at this level, but you guys got two
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  shots at it. Yeah, well, I mean, look, I, I
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  think, you know, for an organization like ours with the
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  resources that we have, with the talent that we have in the
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  building and, and the support that we've got with all of our
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  partners, you know, namely with Chevrolet and then all of our
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  our commercial partners, our sponsors, you know, it's, it is
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  a, it is an expectation of our business to be in the play offs.
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  Every team, every car, every driver.
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  That is the expectation. And then and then you know, we
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  go from there. There's no reason why we
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  shouldn't be in the play offs and, and, but it's hard.
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  It is hard. I mean, there's some great
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  organizations that that that missed it this year.
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  With that being said, you know, we, we have a lot of work to do
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  and we have a big mountain to climb really as an organization
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  in totality to to get to where I want it to be as, as sort of a
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  perennial year in and year out championship contending team.
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  It's it takes, it takes time to build that.
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  And, you know, we were really hot out-of-the-box in 2022.
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  And you know, and, and as as these sort of really bigger,
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  bigger, kind of like well resourced teams have figured out
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  how to exploit the cars and find, find the speed.
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  You know, you, you see that power getting concentrated again
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  at the at the Gibbs Hender can Penske level.
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  And, and we'd have to work really, really hard to get to
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  get back there. But we are getting there.
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  We are 100% turning this ship around and getting getting
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  there. And 2026 is really been a big
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  year about kind of turning that ship around and getting ahead of
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  getting us headed back towards the top.
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  As far as this year in the play offs.
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  I mean, you know, it's it's going to be hard for SVG to go
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  deep. I mean, it's his second year
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  racing ovals ever. I mean the expectation was that
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  he was going to win Rd. course races, get that car in the play
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  offs, unlock the things for the business and himself that that
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  makes sense to get in the play offs and then just go learn.
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  And I and I, you know, he's had two rough races.
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  He's going into Bristol, you know, I don't know what it is
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  1820 whatever points 15 points below the cut line.
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  He's basically got to win the race.
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  So and that's that's yeah, obviously a tall order.
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  So I just told him I'm like, man, just stay loose.
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  Like experience what the play offs and the cup series are
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  light, like, I mean experience how the intensity ratches up,
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  how we're paying attention to points in the cut line during
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  the race because you're going to be here every year.
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  We signed a multi year agreement with him and, and, and, and
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  we're playing the long game with Shane.
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  So, so excited for him to go through that experience.
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  And then with Ross man, we have started with incredible speed
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  this year in the play offs, qualified 6th at Darlington,
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  qualified 4th at Saint Louis just now.
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  And we've had really tough races and, and we haven't had great
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  finishes. So we go in about plus 19 or 20
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  at Bristol. And if we can, if we can just
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  put put good complete races together, I think Ross is
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  certainly a threat for the top 8.
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  And then if we continue sort of the improvements that we've made
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  in the business, you know, who knows what's possible after
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  that. But, but this is, this is part
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  of a 16 to 18 month turn around for our business.
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  And it's nice to just see things happening on the racetrack that
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  demonstrate that we're heading in the right direction when
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  we've had a, you know, a fairly rough year with sort of general
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  Oval speed. So we had an opportunity to talk
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  with Ross on the pre race show this weekend and one of the
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  things you know, again, he's one of those guys, his talent speaks
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  for itself. He's a winner.
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  He's he's a fantastic driver. But I love the thing about Ross,
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  he he really wants to represent the team in a good way.
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  And it just seems like he's just going a little bit out of his
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  way. Well, not a little bit a lot out
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  of his way to serve the fans and be around the fans.
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  And I was joking with him. We're walking down Pit Rd. and
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  there's this big throng of fans around somebody and I'm
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  wondering, I'm looking at a who is that?
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  Who are the fans around? And, and it's Ross and he's
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  taking his time to talk with the fans and sign everything that
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  that's got to be really a really good thing for an owner to see
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  that a driver takes it amongst him upon himself to go out there
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  and and check off that part of being a driver.
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  Yeah, I mean, certainly for US one of the one of the really
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  important parts of our business is, you know, we want to be
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  great advocates of the sport. We want to be agents of growth
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  for the sport. We want to be partners with the
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  sport. And, and you know, as a
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  business, one of the expectations that we have for
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  our drivers is, you know, to be push yourself to be a popular
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  athlete in this sport, because only good comes from it.
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  If you can be, you know, if you could be deeply engaged with the
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  fans, if you can have a great personal relationship with the
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  fans and make yourself available and just increase your
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  popularity. It's it just, it's a, it's a
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  tide that rises everybody, everybody in the boat.
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  And you know, it's great personally for Ross's brand.
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  It's great for all of our sponsors.
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  And, and it's really ultimately a part of the DNA of track house
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  is the fact that, look, if we're gonna, we know 182 people here
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  that are going to dedicate their life to this company and
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  dedicate their life to this sport, We're going to do
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  everything that we can to be as impactful in the sport as
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  possible. And that extends beyond speed on
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  the racetrack. I mean, it's, it's media.
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  It's just talk that we're having right now.
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  It's how Ross, you know, and all of our drivers communicate with
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  fans how they do social media and, and how they advocate for
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  causes that they're passionate about and, and all of that
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  stuff. So we have a, we have a great
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  group of, of drivers that that see the importance and the value
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  in that. And you know, for Ross in
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  particular, you know, you don't grow up an eighth generation
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  farmer and grow up working in the fields on your farm and ever
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  forget where you came from. And it's one of the things that
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  I love about him more than anything else.
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  Yeah, he is an absolutely fantastic guy to talk to, love
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  when when we have an opportunity to talk with them.
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  I don't think a lot of people know, though.
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  Justin, you drove almost 100 races in NASCAR's three top
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  series that that you were a driver first.
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  When did you decide to make the transition or did the transition
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  kind of come to you in terms of going into team ownership?
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  Was that a plan for you to begin with or did it kind of come
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  about? Well, it's a great question.
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  I mean, you know, I was always interested in the business from
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  from day, day one. I would say two things.
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  I was always very interested in the business side of the sport.
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  You know, I studied marketing in college.
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  I, I had, you know, growing up lots of, lots of, you know,
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  friends that were entrepreneurs in California and saw them start
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  businesses and, and do do great things.
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  So there's that. And then there's also the fact
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  that I, I, I knew that I was good at race car driving race
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  cars and I enjoyed it, but that I, I was not great at it.
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  I, I just wasn't. And, and it was, it was never
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  going to be something where, you know, I was going to be able to
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  build a career and support my family being a full time race
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  car driver. And that's it.
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  So, you know, I, I, I wasn't lying to myself.
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  I knew that from a pretty young age.
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  And I was like good enough to kind of get pretty close to the
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  top, win some big races, one Xfinity race, 124 hours Daytona,
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  won a bunch of Trans am races. I got to win some pretty cool
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  stuff and drive in some cool races.
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  But but I mean, when I think about when I thought about my
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  career in a sport that I love, you know, I'm very, very guided
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  by the passion that that I found when I went to the dirt tracks,
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  my grandfather in Iowa and Illinois and Missouri when I was
• 15:40
  young and you know, going to NASCAR Winston Cup races when I
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  was young and wanting to go to Daytona and wanting to win
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  Daytona and win, win championships and dedicate my
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  life and build my life to doing that.
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  And I got into my 30s and then in, you know, approaching 40
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  years old and said, you know, that dream is as Live Today as
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  it was when I was six years old. But if I'm gonna achieve the
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  dream of winning at the highest level of the sport in NASCAR, I
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  gotta I gotta get out of the race car.
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  I gotta get out of the race car and I gotta find where I can be
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  a part of something that achieves that.
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  And ultimately, I got so interested in the business.
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  And then when the new car came, I just saw that opportunity to
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  start a race team and be able to win with it.
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  So, so it's still very satiating when it comes to my appetite for
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  a competition. And, and, and you know, NASCAR
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  and these race weekends and everything, even though I'm not,
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  I'm not driving the car. It's basically just, you know,
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  I'm doing the same thing. I've I've always done.
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  It's just kind of, it's just kind of act too.
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  And, and I get to watch drivers that race for me that are better
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  than I ever was go and carry our number and carry our company to
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  the heights of the sport. And it's I've found more
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  satisfaction in doing it this way by an order of magnitude
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  than I did in the races that I won myself.
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  So, Justin, we've talked about this several times before and
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  it's been a, it's been a subject that's been covered.
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  But I did want to ask you again about your ability to get into
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  this sport as an owner and that this this next generation race
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  car that the that the parts and the pieces, the way the business
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  model was. How big of a factor was that for
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  you to be able to start this race team at the time that you
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  started it? Well, I never would have gotten
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  into this sport if they hadn't gone to the new car because it
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  just was too difficult. Barriers of entry were just too
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  high. And you know, when I was racing
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  for Chip Ganassi Racing towards the end of my tenure there, I
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  remember walking into that building and looking around and
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  sort of thinking to myself, you know, this isn't a sporting
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  operation. This is a manufacturing company.
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  This is an engineering and manufacturing company.
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  It's not sports team and you know, it's just there was so
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  much there's cubic dollars being put into into proprietary data
• 17:51
  and design and and production and all these things.
• 17:54
  And it just seems so unreasonable to build a business
• 18:00
  plan that made any kind of sense where you felt like you were
• 18:02
  going to go put something together where you could compete
• 18:04
  against the guys that have been here for 30-40 years when, you
• 18:06
  know, doing it. But when they announced they
• 18:08
  were going to the new car, then it's like, hey, if we're all
• 18:10
  going to play with the same ball, then you know, I'll bet on
• 18:13
  myself to to be good at the things that I can be good at.
• 18:17
  That's not just putting zeros on checks.
• 18:20
  You know that I can afford that. It's like investing in the
• 18:22
  people and trying to get people motivated and trying to attract
• 18:24
  best in class talent and, you know, tell new stories and all
• 18:28
  that kind of stuff. And it, and it's just it's just
• 18:30
  worked really well. I mean, it's not any less
• 18:33
  expensive than it was. I know that NASCAR's idea was
• 18:36
  that this was going to be a more affordable race car, but that's
• 18:39
  just it. It's it's just not achievable at
• 18:41
  this level of the game. I think unless you're really
• 18:43
  going to actually restrict spending, you know, by cost caps
• 18:46
  and stuff, all these teams are going to find ways to spend
• 18:49
  money. They're just they're just
• 18:50
  spending it on smaller and smaller things.
• 18:54
  Where the opportunity came from is the Perry.
• 18:57
  I mean, is the fact that, you know, can we go, can we go and
• 19:02
  beat Gibbs, Hendrick or Penske with a smaller workforce, a
• 19:06
  smaller shop, less resources, but more grind and dedication
• 19:11
  and focus and talent and execution?
• 19:13
  I believe that we could. We've done it 13 times.
• 19:15
  But I want the big one. I mean, that's what we're trying
• 19:16
  to do right now is, you know, rebuild this business so we
• 19:20
  truly can compete for a championship.
• 19:22
  We've got some incredible talent pouring into the building.
• 19:25
  And then we never would have been able to do that without the
• 19:27
  new car, John. All right, we're going to have
• 19:29
  much more with Justin Marks in just a moment, but a quick word
• 19:32
  from one of our sponsors and we'll be right back.
• 19:34
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• 20:00
  Give Butch Watson a call and find out what Creative Cabinet
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  Solutions can do for you. So Justin, when you came into
• 20:07
  this whole thing, it was really refreshing to hear you say that
• 20:10
  you wanted to do things in a different way and to explore new
• 20:13
  things and to think outside the box.
• 20:16
  Your Project 91 thing, bringing in this talent from other forms
• 20:20
  of racing. I thought it was so cool.
• 20:22
  I've loved it. How is that going for you guys?
• 20:26
  Is that something that you want to keep up?
• 20:27
  What was it successful? For you.
• 20:31
  Well, I mean, I would say absolutely it was successful.
• 20:33
  You know, I don't think Shane van Gisbergen would be in our
• 20:36
  car full time without Project 91.
• 20:38
  I mean, that's, that's exactly what that's exactly the the the
• 20:42
  purpose that Project 91 was, was, is there to serve is to
• 20:46
  really open the door for talent around the world that maybe
• 20:50
  otherwise wouldn't necessarily have an opportunity to get into
• 20:52
  NASCAR at a very high level and be able to demonstrate their,
• 20:56
  you know, their talent. So, you know, it's huge because
• 20:59
  it's a business development mechanism for us.
• 21:01
  And so it had not us an opportunity.
• 21:04
  You know, we're able to sign some great sponsorship and do
• 21:06
  some great storytelling around Kimi Raikkonen coming back when
• 21:09
  we launched the program, Shane getting in and winning first
• 21:12
  driver in 60 years to win in his Cup series debut, huge
• 21:16
  headlines. And that turned into, you know,
• 21:18
  a huge sponsorship for us at Weathertech.
• 21:20
  Honestly, Weathertech and Red Bull came out of Project 91.
• 21:25
  I mean, without Project 91, I think Weathertech and Red Bull,
• 21:28
  you know, I don't know if it really happens because that's
• 21:31
  what they got excited about. So, so yeah, I mean, it's, I
• 21:35
  think it's served a great, great purpose, obviously for business
• 21:37
  development and growth for track house, but also like we've been
• 21:40
  able to do just some really cool stuff with it.
• 21:41
  I mean, like we went to the Daytona 500 this year and
• 21:43
  Porilio just, you know, every wreck that happened in the state
• 21:46
  of Florida happened right in front of him that that week in
• 21:48
  Daytona. But but hey, we got to stand on
• 21:51
  the grid of the Daytona 500 and say for the first time in
• 21:53
  history, A4 car team has come to the NASCAR Cup series of four
• 21:56
  drivers born in four different countries.
• 21:59
  And I think that's awesome. I mean, I think that that's
• 22:02
  really, really cool. And so it gives us the
• 22:04
  opportunity to be able to do things like that that just
• 22:07
  haven't really been done before. So it's very much alive.
• 22:11
  We just, we have to be very careful about how we do it
• 22:15
  because it is a strain on the shot because there's not a
• 22:17
  Project 91 team. There's nobody that's full time
• 22:19
  at Project 91 pulling people out of the shop like our floor
• 22:22
  managers, our group leaders that have experienced having been on
• 22:25
  the road in the Cup Series before.
• 22:27
  We pull them off their day jobs to do this Project 91 car.
• 22:30
  So you know, it's like we don't want to do it during the play
• 22:32
  offs. I knew it was going to be a
• 22:34
  stretch doing it at Daytona and it was a stretch because you're
• 22:37
  doing for the Daytona 500 with Elio.
• 22:38
  You're not just getting ready for the Daytona 500.
• 22:40
  The company's getting ready for the season and now they got to
• 22:42
  build an extra your car. So as we've kind of grown and
• 22:46
  gotten, you know, more and more to the place where I want, or
• 22:49
  closer and closer to the place where I want this business to
• 22:51
  be, We just have to be more thoughtful and intentional about
• 22:54
  how, how we deploy Project 91. It is coming back.
• 22:59
  I, I've, I've got some really interesting conversations
• 23:03
  happening right now. Really, really interesting
• 23:06
  conversations happening right now.
• 23:08
  It's just a, it's a timing and a workflow thing.
• 23:12
  But but we but, but hey, in a perfect world, that thing's on
• 23:15
  the racetrack in 2026. I got a few things to do before
• 23:18
  focusing on that, but that's the goal.
• 23:21
  It seems like Justin, over the years that the business model
• 23:23
  has changed so much in the Cup Series.
• 23:26
  It was a while ago where you came to the racetrack with one
• 23:29
  team and that was the business model.
• 23:31
  Then you saw like Jack Roush, he's got five teams on the
• 23:35
  racetrack, and the idea was the more teams, the more data you
• 23:38
  collect, the more of an advantage you have.
• 23:40
  And then the team size started getting pared down a little bit.
• 23:43
  But it seems now that the business model lends itself
• 23:46
  towards you guys cooperating with one another.
• 23:49
  Obviously you guys got something really good going on with Junior
• 23:53
  Motorsports, some of the other underneath your manufacturer
• 23:56
  umbrella. How important right now are
• 23:58
  those relationships with these other race entities?
• 24:04
  Oh, I mean, it's vital. I mean, it's, you know, I'd say
• 24:06
  one of the things that really gave track house an opportunity
• 24:09
  to be successful out-of-the-box is the fact that we we were
• 24:12
  welcomed as a key partner into the into the Chevrolet family.
• 24:16
  I mean, you know, that's a really hard thing to do.
• 24:17
  It's been Rick Hendrick, Chip Ganassi and and Richard
• 24:21
  Childress for for two decades and, you know, a decade and a
• 24:25
  half, whatever it was. And, and so it's, it's hard to
• 24:27
  get in. I mean, you know, some of these
• 24:28
  guys like Spire and, and some of these folks that they're
• 24:31
  investing a lot of resources still can't find their way into
• 24:33
  that key partner group. And, and, you know, we're
• 24:35
  incredibly lucky that when we were able to make the
• 24:38
  acquisition of Chip Ganassi Racing that I, that when I went
• 24:40
  to GMI was able to get them to a place where they were
• 24:43
  comfortable letting track house take the place that that Ganassi
• 24:47
  that Ganassi had. So, you know, it's a so on the
• 24:50
  Cup series level, I mean, it's, it's, it's a data and analytics
• 24:53
  game. I mean, it's just there's so
• 24:54
  much information and data that that we, we build and design and
• 24:59
  strategize these race cars off of that.
• 25:03
  You know, being able to have, I mean, there's strength in
• 25:05
  numbers. I mean, being able to have, you
• 25:07
  know, multiple entities in these conversations, sharing
• 25:09
  information, you know, for the sake of Chevrolet, trying to get
• 25:13
  Chevrolet to win a manufacturer's championship and
• 25:15
  ultimately trying to get one of, you know, a Chevrolet to win
• 25:18
  every race every weekend. You know, there's, there's,
• 25:21
  there's strength in being able to work, work together and share
• 25:24
  information. We're still very competitive
• 25:27
  with each other. Like it's a, it's a dance.
• 25:29
  I mean, it's kind of it's, it's kind of an interesting thing
• 25:31
  because, because it's like, we want to share, but it's like,
• 25:34
  and when you found something, how do you share it?
• 25:36
  So it's like it's kind of hard to please everybody in the room
• 25:38
  and there's like some gamesmanship going on there.
• 25:41
  But ultimately, you know, it's, it's, it's great.
• 25:44
  It's great for the, for Chevrolet for all, for, you
• 25:46
  know, all of our, all the three key partner teams, our CRHMS
• 25:49
  track house and then the affiliate teams, you know, Spyer
• 25:53
  College, all the rest, Spyer College, JTG and then and Haas
• 25:56
  factory next year. So, so it's very important from
• 25:59
  the JRM standpoint. You asked me, I mean, the
• 26:01
  relationship with JRM is, is really, really great because it
• 26:05
  helps us from a talent development standpoint and it
• 26:08
  helps us from a commercial partner development standpoint
• 26:10
  too. So obviously signing Connor and,
• 26:13
  and then we got to go find Connor a place to race, you
• 26:18
  know, being able to go to Junior Motorsports.
• 26:19
  It puts a car on the racetrack that he can, you know, we're
• 26:21
  sitting here September 9th. It's sitting on nine wins of the
• 26:23
  year in that car. I mean, to be able to have a
• 26:25
  young talent that we can go, you know, place him where he can be
• 26:29
  successful and show the world and do what Connor's doing,
• 26:33
  that's him. That's very, very important.
• 26:34
  It's also important commercially because you know, Daniel's race
• 26:37
  for them, Ross's race for him, SV, GS race for him.
• 26:40
  You know, we have a lot of sponsors and a lot of, you know,
• 26:43
  commercial partners in our ecosystem that they want to be a
• 26:45
  part of track house. They want access to driver
• 26:48
  rights. They want one of these drivers
• 26:49
  in their uniforms, but maybe the Cup level doesn't fit their
• 26:54
  budget or maybe our inventory for races is filled in the
• 26:57
  markets that they want to compete in or something.
• 27:00
  So now it gives us this opportunity to go well, you want
• 27:03
  Ross, you know, in the South Bush Lights got all those races.
• 27:09
  Here's the price point. Why don't you go run Darlington
• 27:11
  with him in the Xfinity race? Oh, that's awesome.
• 27:14
  That's great. So it just gives us an
• 27:15
  opportunity to put Shane in more races on the road course.
• 27:18
  Daniel Suarez gets to win the Xfinity race in Mexico City.
• 27:21
  I mean, it's awesome. So it's great from a from a
• 27:24
  business development standpoint. And it's great to have a
• 27:25
  relationship with a guy like Dale and, and with Kelly and and
• 27:29
  everybody over there because you know, ultimately, you know,
• 27:32
  success comes in the form of Connor coming up, winning a
• 27:35
  bunch of races in a championship with him.
• 27:37
  And then the next Connor, we get the place over there and do the
• 27:40
  same thing, hopefully. Yeah, hey, just we always talk
• 27:44
  about considering our source and then that's an important thing,
• 27:47
  I think in the media. But I think it's also been lost
• 27:49
  a little bit with the media the way it is these days.
• 27:52
  And and you know, you, you read what fans are saying.
• 27:55
  I don't want to take anything away from some of the fans, but
• 27:58
  man, when you hear some some of these things these days, well,
• 28:01
  NASCAR's dying and I don't like the car and I don't like this,
• 28:05
  that or the other thing. But then you go to a place like
• 28:08
  Saint Louis, like Gateway or WWT now, and you see a Pat
• 28:13
  Grandstand and you talk about the ratings from earlier this
• 28:16
  season. It just doesn't seem to me like
• 28:20
  to say a dying sport just doesn't fit with some of the
• 28:23
  things we're saying. But that's what some people are
• 28:26
  saying right now. You're in this business, Justin,
• 28:29
  you own a team, you see it every day.
• 28:31
  What's your opinion on where the sport is right now?
• 28:33
  Is it heading in a good direction?
• 28:35
  Like, I honestly think it is, and I'll argue with anybody
• 28:38
  about that. Oh, that, well, that's a
• 28:42
  complicated question, my friend. I mean, there's a, there's a,
• 28:44
  there's a lot of different ways to answer that question.
• 28:47
  I, I, I will tell you this. I mean, you know, I wouldn't be
• 28:50
  doing this if I didn't believe in a sport.
• 28:52
  I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that that the
• 28:54
  sport of car racing and NASCAR racing in America can't be very
• 28:58
  valuable and very popular for for a long time to come.
• 29:03
  I'll answer it two ways. I'll say two things.
• 29:05
  The first is you know, you can find, you can find any data
• 29:11
  point to make any argument and anything ever, whatever you
• 29:14
  decide you want the world to be, you can go find data to back up
• 29:17
  your argument and present your argument.
• 29:19
  TV numbers are down. You know this is down.
• 29:21
  Whatever that's down. There are a lot of things that
• 29:23
  that that there are a lot of data points that suggest that
• 29:26
  fan sentiment is up, that value, that value for partners is up
• 29:31
  that, you know, the competition is up, the value of the
• 29:35
  competition or how competitive the sport is.
• 29:36
  There's more winners than ever. There's a smaller margin of
• 29:38
  victory than ever. All of those things I think are
• 29:42
  trending in the right in the right direction.
• 29:44
  There's somebody that I that I really, really admire that that
• 29:47
  has been very, very successful in professional sports and
• 29:50
  media, more successful than just about anybody that's walked into
• 29:54
  the Cup garage that told me two or three years ago that he
• 29:57
  believes that NASCAR truly is a sleeping giant.
• 30:00
  But it's going to take a lot of right decisions over the next
• 30:03
  two years to, to get it to where it, where it can be.
• 30:08
  There was a moment in time when nobody would turn on the
• 30:10
  television and watch an MMA fight.
• 30:13
  They thought it was just too violent and bloody and the
• 30:15
  dumbest thing ever. And now it's in, you know, a
• 30:17
  multi billion dollar property that's that's incredibly
• 30:20
  profitable and valuable. So, so I said I'd say like I, I
• 30:23
  don't NASCAR is not on decline. The environment's gotten very,
• 30:26
  very competitive. I mean, there's, there's just,
• 30:28
  there's so many ways for consumers to entertain
• 30:31
  themselves these days that NASCAR's just fighting against a
• 30:35
  lot more than it was in the 90s and the 2000s in the, in the, in
• 30:39
  the teens. And so it's, it's more difficult
• 30:41
  to capture the attention of the American consumer in general.
• 30:44
  It's, it's more if you're not the NFL, Everybody's fighting
• 30:47
  for their lives and trying to get eyeballs and trying to get
• 30:49
  consumers to watch it. But the fact of the matter is,
• 30:51
  is that, you know, the fact that we're a sports property,
• 30:54
  regardless of what we did in 2018 or 2010 or 2000 or 1995, I
• 30:58
  don't care. I, I care about today and I care
• 31:01
  about tomorrow. And when you look at it today
• 31:03
  and you look at it tomorrow for 38 weeks a year, we're, we have
• 31:07
  a live audience of millions of people.
• 31:09
  That's a big deal. That's a very, very big deal.
• 31:12
  And it's very, very valuable. And trust me, I'm sitting in
• 31:15
  meetings at Fortune 500 companies selling sponsorships.
• 31:19
  You know, we've got sponsors on our cars that we've anheuser
• 31:22
  Busch. I mean, we have sponsors on our
• 31:23
  cars that are in that are in the other big leagues.
• 31:25
  And they see the value of NASCAR and they love being there and
• 31:28
  they're renewing and they're extending and they're growing
• 31:30
  and all that stuff. Those are my metrics and I see a
• 31:33
  lot of success. And that brings me to my the
• 31:34
  second way I'd answer that, which is NASCAR.
• 31:36
  With all that said, NASCAR is in a very, very important
• 31:40
  inflection point in the history of the business.
• 31:42
  I mean, they are facing more competition than they ever have.
• 31:46
  They have to work harder than they've ever had to work before.
• 31:49
  There are market forces at play that they've never had to deal
• 31:51
  with before. The media landscape is changing
• 31:54
  by the day. And, you know, the consumer
• 31:56
  demographic and the way that people consume sports and live
• 31:59
  entertainment is changing by the day.
• 32:01
  So they they are like my friend said they are, they're going to
• 32:07
  have to make a lot of right decisions in the next two years.
• 32:10
  And speaking from me personally, I'm here to try to support him
• 32:13
  in any way that I could. Before the race in in Saint
• 32:16
  Louis, I texted Ben Kennedy about an hour before the green
• 32:18
  flag. I said, where are you?
• 32:19
  Said I'm in the hallway. I said, come to see you.
• 32:20
  I walked in there and I closed the door behind me and I sat
• 32:23
  there and talked for an hour about ideas and what about this?
• 32:26
  We need to be paying attention to that and all this kind of
• 32:28
  stuff. So it's going to take NASCAR and
• 32:30
  the teams working together to take advantage.
• 32:33
  But but this is very, I mean, there's a huge opportunity in
• 32:36
  front of us because at the end of the day, and I know this is a
• 32:38
  long winded answer, John, but at the end of the day, you know,
• 32:41
  what I tell what I tell people is cars racing each other on a
• 32:47
  race track at 200 miles an hour inches from away from each other
• 32:52
  will never not be cool. And I've never brought somebody
• 32:55
  to a racetrack to a NASCAR race that stood on pit Rd. and
• 32:58
  watched a green flag and watched the field come by and not have a
• 33:01
  smile on their face and not go, holy cow, that's amazing.
• 33:05
  So that's enough of a data point for me.
• 33:07
  I, I hear you brother, and I'm with you 100% on that.
• 33:10
  And that was a great answer. By the way, with all this going
• 33:13
  on right now in, in the courtroom, Justin, I think we
• 33:16
  all hope it it, you know, it ends in a positive way with the,
• 33:19
  with the 2311 front row lawsuit. But I would imagine as an owner
• 33:23
  that that you're keeping a pretty close eye on that.
• 33:26
  Yeah, I am for sure. I mean, it's, it's, it's a
• 33:29
  little bit, it's a little bit awkward, a little bit difficult
• 33:33
  to follow. I mean, you know, certainly
• 33:35
  following it. I mean, anytime there's a
• 33:37
  material update, we're all looking at it and, and we're
• 33:40
  talking amongst each other. And, you know, I think
• 33:42
  ultimately at the end of the day, regardless of sort of how
• 33:48
  you feel about it or what side you're on, you know, how you
• 33:51
  want it to end up, the hope is that it doesn't detract from the
• 33:54
  opportunity that I just talked about.
• 33:56
  I mean, the hope is that it doesn't create negative
• 34:00
  headlines or take some of the the the wind out of the sails or
• 34:03
  jeopardize the future opportunity of the sport writ
• 34:05
  large, you know, to be able to take advantage of, of the
• 34:09
  opportunity. So I'm, I'm hopeful of that,
• 34:11
  whatever the result of it is, I'm hope for, I hope for sort of
• 34:14
  a, a swift and decisive finish to where we can kind of just go,
• 34:19
  OK, this is where we've ended up.
• 34:20
  Let's go race at Daytona. Let's go get ready for the
• 34:22
  Clash. I'm not totally sure that that
• 34:25
  will happen, but you know, I, I, I will say this, I, I think that
• 34:29
  there, there certainly needs to be more collaboration and a
• 34:35
  better relationship between the teams and the sport.
• 34:38
  There's a lot of distrust between the two and, and whether
• 34:42
  it's wounds from the past that just won't heal or just, or
• 34:46
  culture in the garage or what it is.
• 34:48
  And I don't know, NASCAR's working really hard to, to
• 34:51
  repair that. I will also say that, you know,
• 34:54
  it's a very, very difficult business.
• 34:56
  Owning a NASCAR Cup Series team is a is a very difficult
• 35:00
  business and it's a scary business.
• 35:02
  And it's a multi $1,000,000 business where every day you're
• 35:06
  exposed and any, any kind of change in economic headwinds or
• 35:12
  one of your sponsors gets a new CMO that likes baseball more
• 35:15
  than racing or something like that.
• 35:17
  I mean, any one of those little things is a potential
• 35:19
  existential crisis to your business.
• 35:22
  That's a difficult way to live. It's a difficult way to live in
• 35:24
  a sport that's worth, you know, 5 to $7 billion and has $2
• 35:29
  billion of revenue a year. When you look at that stuff, you
• 35:32
  go like the league and the team. Between the league and the
• 35:35
  teams, no one should be scared and no one should be, you know,
• 35:40
  worried about tomorrow. But we are a little bit.
• 35:43
  So, you know, my hope is that wherever it ends up, it ends up
• 35:46
  in a place where, you know, teams are a little more
• 35:49
  comfortable and a little more incentivized to work, you know,
• 35:53
  work hard with NASCAR. But regardless, track house is
• 35:58
  here and and you know, we signed the charter.
• 36:01
  We figured it was probably going to be as as good as we were
• 36:05
  going to get. It's an improvement over what we
• 36:06
  had before. If those those two guys in
• 36:10
  Raleigh can go get something better than great.
• 36:12
  But we're focused on, we're focused on building a business
• 36:15
  off the agreement that we have and doing the best that we can
• 36:17
  trying to win races. Yeah, and you guys have done an
• 36:20
  amazing job doing that in a short period of time.
• 36:23
  Just as a lot of articles coming out of Saint Louis about your
• 36:27
  drivers driving through the grass.
• 36:29
  Have you spoken to NASCAR about that?
• 36:31
  No, no, not yet. And I think that they were.
• 36:34
  I think they were just, I mean, I don't, I was, I've been a shop
• 36:37
  last day and a half and, and I know after the race they were,
• 36:39
  they were laughing about it with each other like they were just,
• 36:42
  I think they were frustrated. You know, both of those guys
• 36:45
  just had crappy ends to the day. They had fast race cars, a crap
• 36:49
  ends to the day and they hit each other like it going into
• 36:52
  one and two or down the back straight way.
• 36:53
  They hit each other. And, you know, I don't know,
• 36:56
  race car drivers can just be like super, super goofy
• 36:58
  sometimes. And I think that they just were
• 37:00
  trying to maybe get rid of some aggression from the day.
• 37:04
  Yeah, I, I don't, I mean, unless, you know, unless in the
• 37:06
  last three hours somebody from NASCAR has called one of my
• 37:09
  competition. People haven't hurt anybody.
• 37:11
  Justin, thank you so much, man. We appreciate so much your
• 37:15
  honesty and your insight and what you guys have done for the
• 37:18
  sport I really think is second to none recently in the history.
• 37:22
  The thinking outside of the box, the success, the hard work.
• 37:26
  There's a lot of us who really appreciate it and I appreciate
• 37:29
  you coming on and talking to us about it, man.
• 37:31
  This is a great chat, man. I hope to see you very soon in
• 37:33
  person. Awesome.
• 37:34
  I appreciate it. Had fun.
• 37:36
  Thank you.