There’s a kind of irony in Shane van Gisbergen’s win in Sunday’s NASCAR Street Race in Chicago. In the same week that Trackhouse Racing announced it would be parting ways with Daniel Suarez at season’s end, SVG once again paid dividends on the belief team owner Justin Marks had in him.
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Since becoming a team owner in 2021, starting with a one-car operation with Suarez, and then at the end of that season, he purchased Chip Ganassi’s NASCAR operation lock, stock and barrel, Marks has made it a significant part of his life’s work to give needy or promising drivers a chance when most other teams might not.
He made Suarez and Ross Chastain Trackhouse’s premier drivers in the Cup Series. Suarez, the first Mexican driver to become a full-time Cup driver, lost his ride when Gaunt Brothers Racing scaled back after the 2020 season — they basically couldn’t afford to keep going (and eventually closed) in 2021.
And then there was Ross Chastain, the so-called Florida watermelon farmer. He kind of came with the Ganassi sale and while Marks could have cut him easily, he decided to give Chastain a chance to prove himself.
Then came 2023. Marks had heard about this incredible driver in the Australian V8 Supercars Series named Shane van Gisbergen. He asked the New Zealand driver if he’d like to come to America to try out NASCAR racing.
Van Gisbergen agreed and immediately paid a massive return on Marks’ investment, shocking the NASCAR world by winning his first-ever Cup race — which coincidentally was also NASCAR’s first-ever street race.
After van Gisbergen spent 2024 in the Xfinity Series, Marks brought him back to Trackhouse in 2025, giving him a full-time ride. And SVG has paid even more dividends on Marks’ belief in him with wins in Mexico City and again in Chicago on Sunday.
Marks is the proverbial racer’s racer. His whole adult life has been involved as a driver, a luxury go-kart track owner and other related businesses. He also is a great talent scout. Sure, he and Suarez are going separate ways at the end of this season, but you can be sure SVG’s legacy is only going to continue to grow, provided he gets better at oval racing, which he concedes is his first priority.
“It’s a unique project with Shane,” Marks said. “We wouldn’t be doing this if we thought we could go win road courses and know we’re not going to run that good on the ovals because he’s never done it before. At this level of the game, you have to be a complete package.
“For his level of intelligence and how he studies and how he adapts and how he learns, there’s a real opportunity here for him to figure the ovals out and get fast at the ovals and be a complete Cup driver.”
Marks has no concern that SVG will come around on ovals, so to speak
Marks’ confidence in van Gisbergen is only going to continue to grow. Getting better at ovals will come in time.
“For me in my experience driving race cars for 20 years, it’s his racing IQ,” Marks said of SVG. “It’s how strategic he can think while he’s on the limit of the race car. A lot of drivers, it takes all of your mental bandwidth to drive the car fast.
“Shane is one of these guys that can drive the car at the limit but be thinking bigger picture stuff. He knows where he is in the race, and he’s great at managing his tires, his equipment, all that kind of stuff.
“Plus I think for his talent profile specifically, street races come very, very naturally to him. He’s got a lot of experience doing it in the V8 Supercars series, but I think in races like this where everybody is working so hard just to get the apexes and get out of the corner the right way and all of that, he does that just naturally while he’s thinking about bigger picture stuff so he can really put the whole race together in a super impressive way.”
Van Gisbergen’s crew chief, Stephen Doran, has watched his driver at his best and worst this season. He revels in the success SVG has had.
“He’s like a machine out there,” Doran said of van Gisbergen. “He makes no mistakes and he just waits until somebody misses an apex in front of him and he pounces on them. He just drives through the field.
“You saw it yesterday (when SVG won the Xfinity race at Chicago for the second straight year) and today. His laps are so consistent, and that’s part of why he saves his tires so well.”
Marks: Sometimes organizations need to change drivers
Suarez’ departure at season’s end caught many by surprise, but there had been signs earlier when Suarez told select media that he didn’t believe he’d be back at Trackhouse next year. His prophecy proved correct.
“This isn’t a sport where you do the same thing forever,” Marks said. “As we grow, we just felt like it was time to wrap up that relationship and work to try to help him to find the next opportunity, but continue to grow as a company and what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Leaving Chicago, Chastain is eighth in the standings, SVG moved up to 27th and Suarez remains far out of playoff contention in 29th place. Suarez would have to win one of the seven remaining regular season races to put all three Trackhouse teams into the playoffs.
While SVG now has three NASCAR Cup wins on road courses and on Sunday became the winningest foreign-born driver in Cup history with those three wins, he still has a long way to become the all-time ace of NASCAR road racing: Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon holds the record with nine road course wins in the Cup Series.
But Marks can see his Kiwi driver one day overtake Gordon’s mark. “I think it’s just keep winning,” Marks said. “It’s just keep going to these races like today where you just execute a complete race and don’t make mistakes and win. I think it’s super, super simple.”
He added, “I don’t want to jump the gun, but he’s the best road course stock car racer that I’ve ever seen. I think when he’s done with us all and walks away from the sport, I think he’s going to walk away as the best road course racer that this sport has ever seen.”
