Marks bypasses charters to buy entire Ganassi NASCAR team

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Immediately after the bombshell announcement that Justin Marks had purchased Chip Ganassi’s NASCAR team, the outgoing owner took the soon-to-be new boss back to the shop to address a room full of anxious employees.

“It was important to me to get in front of people and look them in the eye,” Marks told the Associated Press. “I told them, ‘I am here because I love racing, and there are a lot of good things happening in this building and I am going to work hard to preserve as much of that as possible.’ ”

The work begins next week for the co-owner of Trackhouse Racing, who struggled to find a charter for the team’s first year of competition and balked at paying the escalating costs of NASCAR’s equivalent of a franchise. Kaulig Racing last month bought a pair of charters for what the industry believes to be at least $10 million apiece, and after crunching the numbers, Marks just couldn’t justify the spend.

So he switched his strategy, looked at the marketplace and took his shot: Marks picked up the phone and cold-called Ganassi, the Pittsburgh-tough owner not known for suffering fools gladly. After 20 years in NASCAR with a team that never really reached the level of Ganassi’s successful IndyCar and sports car programs, Marks wondered if Ganassi was willing to cash out.

Ganassi said Marks made him “an offer that required my attention,” and it culminated with Wednesday’s announcement that Trackhouse Entertainment Group had bought him out of NASCAR.

So how did a 40-year-old former racer buy himself a seat at the table alongside Rick Hendrick, Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs and Jack Roush?

He launched Trackhouse with Suarez as the driver and leased his charter for this season after he was outbid on four others. Marks then introduced entertainer Pitbull as co-owner of the team, which Marks hopes to relocate to Nashville, Tenn., by 2023.

Trackhouse has many core principles ranging from success on the race track to connecting with the Latino market and making an impact on youth in America’s minority communities.

“I’ve been positioning myself from a capital standpoint for something like this for several years,” Marks told AP. “I was just waiting for the right moment. Yeah, I’m a former race car driver, but if anything I probably raced for too long.”

A nondisclosure agreement prevents Marks from discussing specifics of the Ganassi purchase, but if Matt Kaulig paid $20 million-plus just for a pair of charters, then Marks at minimum paid at least double for Ganassi’s entire NASCAR organization. The purchase did not come with the Concord race shop, which is owned by Ganassi partner Rob Kauffman, who will lease the building in 2022 to Trackhouse.

But the nuts and bolts all transfer to Trackhouse, including existing employee contracts. When asked how he is paying for the purchase, Marks said he was legally bound not to discuss the details.

“Every entity has different financing,” he said. “But I’m here for the right reasons. I’m here because I love racing.”