As Trackhouse grows, Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez seek improved performance

NASCAR Cup Series

Published Aug. 26, 2024 11:49 a.m. ET

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ross Chastain sits on the bubble to make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, a position he in some ways cherishes to be in and a position that frustrates him after a couple of winning seasons.

Chastain won two races in 2022 along with electrifying the NASCAR world with his now-banned “Hail Melon” move at Martinsville. In 2023, Chastain won twice again to make the playoffs.

This year? No wins despite an average finish as good as last year but about two spots worse than in 2022, his first at Trackhouse. Chastain enters the regular-season finale at Darlington at 27 points behind the playoff cutoff and facing pretty much a must-win situation to make the playoffs.

“Once you taste winning and success, I’m a competitor and I just want more,” Chastain said earlier this month. “My goal is to and what I’m working towards is to make sure that these last two years were not the glory days, they were not the bright spot.

“I don’t believe that to be the case. So, yeah, we definitely have not had the speed that we want. But speed can come and go, and it is a cyclical sport — pun intended.”

In its third year since Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks bought Chip Ganassi Racing and merged their operations, Chastain and teammate Daniel Suarez have learned that the third time isn’t necessarily the charm.

And among it all, Trackhouse grapples with expansion of its NASCAR program (and other racing ventures). It has hired three drivers and fired one all in the last year.

Shane van Gisbergen and Zane Smith joined the organization prior to this season and both were farmed out — van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion, to an Xfinity ride at Kaulig and Smith to a Cup ride at Spire.

Trackhouse will purchase one of the Stewart-Haas Racing charters (assuming a charter deal gets done between the owners and NASCAR), and that Cup seat will go to van Gisbergen. Smith ended up as the odd driver out and the team announced his release the day before announcing Saturday night that SVG would run a full-time Cup car next year using the No. 88.

“When we decide the drivers, it’s a big picture, and we cast a wide net of qualifications — it’s commercial support, fit in the company, personality, all of that,” Marks said. “We don’t have four cars, we have three, so we have to make a decision. We’re excited about the decision we’ve made with SVG.”

Trackhouse also signed Connor Zilisch earlier this year as a development driver, and Zilisch will drive for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series next year (also in a No. 88).

“I’ve told any driver under the Trackhouse umbrella, as they all look and are going through their careers to not look at the 1 car — it’s locked up for a long time,” Chastain said. “You know me, I don’t believe for a minute that I understand what’s going through Justin Marks’ mind.

“Five years ago, I would have never thought a Cup team was in his future, and here we are contending for race wins and the playoffs with him and whatever’s next. I’m here for the ride.”

Trackhouse drivers know they continue to drive for a team owner that looks for ways to expand and disrupt. Avenue Sports Fund recently invested in the team, which also has Pitbull as a partner. They added a MotoGP team this year. Marks has interests in the Nashville Grand Prix, go-kart facilities and is a co-owner in the CARS Tour with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton.

“There has been a lot of things happening at Trackhouse lately, and none of them are secret — an investor company coming into Trackhouse, the MotoGP, there has been a lot of growth in Trackhouse, and that’s amazing,” Suarez said. “Trackhouse is an amazing place to be. With that being said, we have to continue to focus on competition in the Cup Series.

“That’s being something that this year, it just hasn’t been as good as before. We believe that we have some good things in the works, but we have to wait and see how those things reflect on-track.”

Suarez made the playoffs in 2022 with a win at Sonoma, missed the playoffs last year and won at Atlanta earlier this year to ensure Trackhouse will have at least one driver in the playoffs.

Suarez has had an average finish of 18-19th the last couple of years. He has six top-10s this year, while he had 10 in all of last year and 13 in 2022. He recently signed an extension — but only a one-year deal through 2025.

“2022, we started extremely strong in Trackhouse with the Next Gen car, 2023 was strong, and 2024 hasn’t been as good as we were expecting,” Suarez said. “We have work to do. We believe that we know where we’re heading, and we have already some things in the back pocket that we’re working on behind the scenes.

“But we have work to do. Hopefully, that work gets reflected on track.”

While his new deal takes him through just 2025, Suarez said that was done to make sure they don’t get in a position where either side would have difficulty getting out of the deal if performance sours.

“There is a lot of things in the contract that activate longer if we both decided that that was the right thing to do,” Suarez said. “There is a lot of things in Trackhouse that that are adjusting and changing performance-wise.

“We’re not exactly where we want to be, not just in the 99 [of my car] but in Trackhouse as a company, and we have to make sure that, that we fix that before we want to go any longer. It really goes both ways.”

Anyone who competes in the sport knows there are ups and downs, and Chastain and Suarez certainly have had their share of downs. Ask either of them five years ago when they wondered about their futures, and they’d take being frustrated to finish outside the top 15.

“My group at Trackhouse has been around a lot longer than me, and they’ve been through ups and downs and when you can do no wrong and when you can do no right,” Chastain said. “We’re in just one of those runs where I’m just not putting together the finishes and acquiring the points.

“They’ve been there. We’ve talked through it, and we keep going to work. But we’re not stagnant. We’re not just bringing the same stuff back to the track. It might not show all the time, but it’s been really inspiring to see the work that’s went on.”

The drivers have been part of that work.

“I don’t want to run 15th,” Suarez said. “They don’t want to run 15th. But it’s not a secret, this year has been a struggle for Trackhouse performance-wise. We have one car in the playoffs that got a win, and the other car is in the [mix] of making it in points.

“We have work to do, and hopefully we will get the train in the right direction.”

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.