Sunday's Race Is Homecoming For Founder Justin Marks

Sunday’s third annual NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway is a sort of homecoming for Trackhouse Racing founder Justin Marks who spent the first eight years of his life in St. Louis. 

“If it weren’t for St. Louis, I am not sure I would be at Trackhouse Racing or that I would have ever fallen in love with racing,” said Marks, whose team will field Cup Series entries for Ross Chastain and Daniel Suárez in St. Louis Sunday.   

St. Louis is where Marks first caught the racing bug thanks to his grandfather. 

The 43-year-old Marks was born at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and grew up in the Webster Groves/Kirkwood area. He still has family in the area and credits his grandfather Albert

Wyrick from Keokuk, Iowa who first took the youngster to area dirt tracks. The two watched Midwestern racers like the Wallace brothers, Ken Schrader, Dick Trickle, and scores of others careen around the local tracks.

He saw the passion of the fans, the commitment from the drivers and the sheer enjoyment of speed. Marks’s father Michael moved the family to Silicon Valley, California when Justin was eight.

Although he left the Midwest, racing never left him. Marks decided to be a driver, hopping in a variety of sports cars with great success even reaching the pinnacle in 2009 when he joined four co-drivers winning the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Marks ventured into NASCAR where he competed in 38 races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series posting four top-10s and capturing two pole awards. He made 35 starts

in the Xfinity Series posting a win, three top-five and seven top-10s. He won the Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Aug. 13, 2016, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing.

He even entered the ultra-competitive Cup Series where he competed in six Cup Series races with a best finish of 12th place in the 2018 Daytona 500.        

“I started to look around and realized if I wanted to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish in NASCAR it wasn’t going to be as a driver,” said Marks. “Deep down, I think I always felt that if I was going to forge a career in racing, it was going to be with an initiative like Trackhouse.”

He decided to retire from full-time competition and devote his energies to the business of motorsports and entertainment. He moved to Nashville in 2020 and created the Trackhouse Entertainment Group and its Trackhouse Racing division. 

Timing his race team’s entry into NASCAR as the sport moved toward a new more economical model, Marks’ Trackhouse team began competition in 2021 as a single-car race team with Mexican driver Suárez behind the wheel and international entertainment superstar Pitbull as a partner. 

The team achieved success on and off the track in 2021 running competitively and reaching out to non-traditional NASCAR audiences. Its multicultural pit crews, new sponsors and fresh openness were pillars of the Trackhouse philosophy. 

Trackhouse Racing expanded to two teams when it acquired Chip Ganassi Racing’s NASCAR assets which brought in Chastain.

Since then the team has added three-time Supercars Champion Shane van Gisbergen, 2022 Craftsman Truck Series Champion Zane Smith and 17-year-old driving prodigy Connor Zilisch to the driver lineup.

Trackhouse has won seven Cup Series races with Chastain, Suárez and Van Gisbergen visiting victory lane. In January, Trackhouse Racing joined the MotoGP grid in 2024, bringing an American team back to the pinnacle of motorcycle racing for the first time in over a decade. With riders Miguel Oliviera and Raul Fernandez, Trackhouse Racing MotoGP is determined to be a competitive force on and off the track in partnership with Aprilia as its official factory-supported team.

Marks won the 2022 National Motorsports Press Association’s (NMPA) Myers Brothers Award during the 2022 NASCAR Awards in Nashville. The award recognizes individuals and/or groups that have provided outstanding contributions to stock car racing.

Marks won the 2022 "Byrnsie Award" from Fox. The award was established to celebrate an individual in the NASCAR Cup Series who showcases the same principles as the late Steve Byrnes embodied — preparation, teamwork and family within the garage area.

Marks pursuits are manyfold. 

He is a co-manager of the Marks Family Foundation, with several different philanthropic endeavors. The family, led by father Michael Marks, has been a successful private equity leader in Silicon Valley for years. Justin owns the Trackhouse Motorplex (go-kart) racing facility near Charlotte and is an investor in the CARS Tour.  

Marks now splits time between the NASCAR team’s North Carolina race shop and his home near Nashville where he and his wife Erin are raising two daughters. 
And it all began in St. Louis.