Chip Ganassi’s had tentacles in many racing series since he stepped out of a cockpit decades ago. As a team owner, his primary interest has been the NTT IndyCar Series, where he’s racked up race wins, championships and Indianapolis 500 victories. In NASCAR, he became the first team owner to win the Daytona 500 and Indy 500 the same year. In IMSA Ganassi has, again, race victories and championships in some of the most notable sports car races.
Ganassi’s NASCAR team is currently comprised of Kurt Busch and Ross Chastain, currently 14th and 22nd, respectively, as the Cup Series heads towards its 2021 playoffs. Now Ganassi has sold his entire stable of equipment, along with his two charters, to fellow Chevrolet competitors Trackhouse Racing, who joined the Cup Series this year. Co-owners Justin Marks and entertainer Pit Bull, together with Trackhouse Racing president Ty Norris are bullish in their desire to move up the NASCAR food chain.
No financial terms of the agreement have been disclosed; the change of ownership occurs after NASCAR’s season finale at Phoenix Raceway on November 7. At that time, all equipment and charters will belong to Trackhouse. According to Norris, “Daniel Suarez, who is a current driver for Trackhouse Racing in the No. 99 Chevrolet, will continue as one of our drivers, and we will be discussing a second driver at a later date, which is a confirmation that Trackhouse Racing will be fielding two full-time NASCAR Cup Series entries, starting in 2022 and moving deep into the future.” Norris noted the list for a second driver is a short one.
Ganassi didn’t talk to anyone but the owners of Trackhouse before making the decision to sell his interests; he spoke to Marks and they worked a deal. “There’s a lot of new blood in NASCAR,” Ganassi noted. “People like Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, the Spire people, Kaulig Racing – a lot of new blood, and they all seem to be bringing a new perspective and, more importantly a new vision. The sport, I think, needs people with vision,” he said.
While Ganassi feels “there’s much to be excited about” in NASCAR, “I want you to know I’m still dedicated to motorsports and the sport of auto racing. I’m not getting out of racing: I still have three other teams in the INDYCAR series, IMSA sports cars and Extreme E. So our days by no means are getting out of racing.”
He gave credit to his mentors, including Jim France, Bill France Jr. and Mike Helton for his team’s success and accentuated that his team was not for sale. “Justin called me up one day, and I think I probably turned him off after the first phone call or something. I said leave me alone,” Ganassi acknowledged. “He came back with an offer that required my attention, so I had to take a look at it. It’s somewhat bittersweet when you look back on 20 years of your life… but it’s time for new blood and time for a change. I’ve always accepted change with a positive attitude.”
Marks made his first attempt to work a deal with Ganassi about two months ago, at the end of April, start of May. It wasn’t the financial component that drew Ganassi to Marks and his program, it was Marks’ “vision about where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do, how he wanted to handle it, how he wanted to do a deal or how – just basically the way he wanted to do it, I think, was maybe more compelling than the financial component,” Ganassi confirmed.
Marks, like Ganassi a former racer who hung up his gloves after the 2018 Bank of America Roval 400 at Charlotte, has NASCAR experience in Cup, Xfinity and Truck series; he’s contested the ARCA Racing Series. Marks spent three seasons working with Chip Ganassi Racing in the Xfinity Series. His most recent sports car activities were with Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura GTD team in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The 40-year-old has concentrated on sports marketing after ending his driving career. Since joining the Cup Series, Trackhouse Racing has had a technical partnership with Richard Childress Racing and has operated from Welcome, N.C.
“I think today is about honoring the legacy and contributions that Chip has made to NASCAR over the last 20 years,” Marks said. “Over 1,300 Cup races, won every marquee event in the sport, helped launch the stock car careers of drivers like Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Ross Chastain and a number of others. They’ve executed numerous groundbreaking partnership programs, companies like Havoline, Target, Bass Pro Shops, Miller Coors, McDonalds and more – and all that hard work and legacy, everything that has been built at CGR over the past two decades, that will serve as the foundation for the Trackhouse vision moving forward,” Marks declared.
Trackhouse Racing, which is a component of Nashville-located Trackhouse Entertainment, intends to base its 2022 operations from Ganassi’s Concord, N.C. facility. “We’ll start looking to the future after that,” Marks said. While the racing enterprise has only 19 contests under its belt, “A transaction like this, or getting to this kind of moment, was certainly probably always in the plan. Obviously, to solidify your future in the sport, the charter is an important thing.”
As Chip Ganassi exits the NASCAR Cup Series after 20 years, he believes it’s on the upswing. “I think it’s on an uptick. I look at my 20 years and I say, hey, I’m 63 yers old; am I going to do this for 10 more years or something? We seem to be in a period of time here, where there’s some movement going on and some new, fresh blood coming in. Like I said, our team wasn’t for sale; I wasn’t planning on selling it.” But when Justin Marks came calling, he had all the right ingredients that made Ganassi consider the sale. And now it’s done.
So long Kurt Busch.