NASCAR CUP SERIES
WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
AUGUST 9, 2025
Justin Marks, founder of Trackhouse Racing, and Shane van Gisbergen, driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media onsite at Watkins Glen International following the announcement of Van Gisbergen’s multi-year contract extension.
Media Availability Quotes:
Big announcement yesterday, Shane (van Gisbergen) has signed with Trackhouse Racing for a few more years. Can you talk to us about what that means for the team?
Justin Marks: “Yeah, this has been this has been a really, really fun project for the company. Obviously, you know, everything happened really, really quickly from Chicago to the Truck race (at IRP) a couple weeks later, into the Indianapolis Cup race, and then a season of Xfinity and now full-time in the Cup Series for Shane (van Gisbergen). I think we’ve got someone here that that can win anytime we show up on the road courses. Winning is so important here in the Cup Series, obviously, but I think what kind of excites us at Trackhouse more than anything is his speed of development on the ovals and just working with him day in and day out and recognizing that even though his history in racing has been not very similar to what the competitors in the Cup Series have with just a lack of experience on the ovals — just his talent, work ethic and kind of showing his progression on the ovals has put our company in a position where we feel excited and comfortable to make a longer-term commitment to Shane. We think he’s got an oval win in him in the Cup Series. Things are just coming together and really starting to gel, so it’s just a good time to make a commitment to each other and we’re thrilled that he that he accepted the offer. We just have to get back to work and keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Shane, what does it mean to you to have this extension?
Shane van Gisbergen: “Yeah, it’s been an amazing couple of years, as Justin (Marks) touched on — how it’s all snowballed and how we’ve been going. And then this year, you know, it’s been a real learning year but I feel like we’ve made big progression. The road courses have obviously been a bonus the last couple of months. It’s just been a cool team to be a part of — the win lunches we’ve been doing and seeing how much it means to everyone. This week even, the atmosphere in the shop, the build-up and expectations now, it’s really cool. It’s cool to build a relationship with everyone there and, yeah, I’ve just been loving every minute. I’m looking forward to doing it for a few more years.”
Shane, at what point did you decide, I want to stay over here and I want to race in NASCAR? I’m assuming you didn’t necessarily show up in Chicago thinking that, but at what point did you feel comfortable and that this was a place that you thought, I want to stay, I want to do this?
Shane van Gisbergen: “It was probably after Indy when I ran 83rd and I had the most fun of my life just battling people all race on the oval there. Yeah, the truck race was awesome and I thought — this is going to be really cool to do. After Indy, I think we did a deal pretty quickly after that. Like I said, just right from the start, I’ve enjoyed life here and racing every week and the challenge. It was probably time for me to have a new challenge in my career. I’ve raced Supercars for 15 years or something, so yeah, the timing was just perfect and I don’t regret any minute. It’s been the most fun I’ve had in racing for a long time. It’s been really cool.”
Justin, can you address his work ethic to try to get better, to make the push, to be better on ovals because we know he’s got this road course uncovered…
Justin Marks: “Yeah, I mean, I think in this day and age in the Cup Series, it takes a huge commitment because the series is so competitive and it’s the accumulation or the aggregate of so many small things that end up in success in the Cup Series — that’s data, simulation, really understanding the cars, understanding the development of the cars and how things change week to week, all of that. Shane’s just proven very, very quickly that he likes to live in that area, that bubble, of just really understanding all the technical details; understanding how the cars are built and just what it takes to go fast. I think that there’s also just not a lot of noise. It’s just the work. It’s just getting in and doing the work and putting in the hours and the focus when that’s really what’s required to go fast these days — it’s really to understand these race cars and understand the technology, the aero and how to get the most out of them. I think that’s probably contributed to how fast he’s been able to develop on the ovals. He’s a student and he watches tape. He watches the races and looks at the data and really asks the questions of ‘why’. I think that, at this day and age and at this level, that level of commitment, that level of focus and that level of intelligence are real factors in being successful. He’s just demonstrated that from the first time he showed up at Chicago in 2023.”
Shane, this is going to be your first playoff appearance in Cup. What’s realistic for the No. 88 team? Justin, the same question to you.”
Shane van Gisbergen: “I really have no idea. I try not to race with expectations and just take it as it comes. But I feel like we’re ramping up a lot and we’re starting to go to tracks that will be the second time for me, and I felt like I got a lot better at that last year at Xfinity. And yeah, hopefully the same trend this year, but the first round is very difficult. We go to Darlington, which is my favorite oval. But the other two, Bristol and Gateway — I haven’t really been to Gateway before, so it’s going to be very difficult. But if we get to the second round, it’s probably going to be easier than the first one, you know? So I don’t really know how we’re going to end up, but I do feel like we’re improving every week and our average running position or pace is definitely trending in the right direction, so if we execute, who knows what can happen.”
Justin Marks: “Yeah, I don’t know if I think about what’s realistic or what the goals are from like a finishing standings position or anything like that. I think what we have an opportunity to do with the 88 team is to go into the playoffs, have a lot of playoff points and be able to have somewhat of a cushion, so if we go do a good job and he executes it at those first three races to be able to get to the second round, like you mentioned, I think as the momentum continues to grow and his experience continues to grow and we get through that first round and he has a good second round, I think the Round of Eight is something that’s very possible for us. And then you’re really among the best guys in this sport, executing at the most important time of the year, and that’s when it just gets really, really hard. So, I mean, I think the focus is to really just stay with the week in and week out of just improving and grinding. I think this is the first of many playoff appearances for him, so I think it would be good for him to just get the experience of how the dynamic of the championship changes once we get to those rounds.”
Justin, where are you in the Trackhouse 2.0 process right now?
Justin Marks: “Well, I think as we sit here today, I’m probably more excited about the future of this company than I’ve been ever since day one, and I think that started with hiring Todd Meredith, our President of Racing Operations, who’s come in the first three weeks and really done a very deep dive into the organization. This is a guy with decades of experience in the Cup Series and championships under his belt as an executive in the sport who really knows what it takes to assemble great working groups; how to maximize your opportunity every single week, where to push on things, where to organize budgets, where to organize people and org charts, and where to invest in tools and all that. So having him come in has really opened up the 2.0 process. He sat with me two weeks ago in Nashville and sort of presented his plan to me, and I left that meeting just so fired up and so excited. So, you know, it’s going to be a strengthening of our workforce. It’s going to be a strengthening of our tools. We’re right in the middle of that process right now and I think when we unload it at Daytona in 2026, I think the team will just be more powerful than it’s ever been since its inception and I’m really excited about it.”
I understand that teams evolve and teams don’t stay static. You came in with a big push and you guys did some really good things early and were kind of building and building. It seemed like you were kind of on the precipice of something really big and you haven’t been able to meet that, which is why you’re doing 2.0. Why did it get to a point where you were getting close, you couldn’t get over that hump, and then having to go through this 2.0 process? We learn from everything that we go through, so what did you learn from what wasn’t maybe done as well in that case?
Justin Marks: “Well I think if you look over the last decade, the history of the sport, there’s always ebbs and flows and periods of power at different teams and all that. It’s knowledge, technology and process development, things like that.
When the car first came out and the teams didn’t really know how to fully exploit the Next Gen car and we were going to the races in 2022 and 2023, it was really just kind of like an execution game of just getting the car on the racetrack and executing well, and we’re a great team at execution. That really fell into our wheelhouse, so we had a lot of success in ‘22 and ‘23.
Then you have the normal players, your Hendrick Motorsports, Gibbs and Penske, that over time really start to activate the depth in their organizations and the tools and technology they have to really understand what makes the car go fast, and so it’s a different ballgame now than it was in ‘22. As that knowledge center around the cars has developed, that’s where we have found where it’s been more difficult for us because, as an organization, we’re not as big as Penske and Gibbs and all that.
So I think how I’d answer that is just that sport’s gotten tougher and, you know, the cream kind of rises to the top. But with that being said, the plan that we have in front of us I think presents an opportunity for us to come back as strong or stronger than we’ve ever been and really contend for a championship. I’ve seen the plan and I’ve seen the methodology and the psychology around the plan, and it is a championship team framework. It’s going to take money, it’s going to take sacrifice, it’s going to take patience, it’s going to take a lot of work, but as these big teams with a lot of history in the sport now start to really understand the cars, we understand now where we have to make investments and focus our time to get back to where we need to be, and that’s the plan.”
Can you do that as essentially a third Chevy team? I know you’ve talked about just kind of that order. I know you get support from Chevrolet, but maybe just not getting as much as potential…
Justin Marks: “We get the same as Hendrick Motorsports does because we’re a key partner with Hendrick. But Hendrick does have a lot of depth in their organization that we don’t have. I think that I’m very bullish that we can do it because of this race car, and it’s why I’m in the sport to begin with because of this race car. I mean, if it was 2013, I think it would be a lot harder to do it because we’re not designing and manufacturing cars anymore. We understand what that window of success is, and we understand kind of the playbook to be able to get there.
It’s a huge thing for us to be key partners with Chevrolet, so we have access to data and we have access to support. But you’re only as good as what you can do with that support and what you can do with that access and that data, so that’s what we’re focusing on. I think ultimately, we’ll end up in a business structure that puts us in a position to succeed and contend for championships.”
You upended your whole life to come here, and your situation’s a little different, but how long do you want to be here for?
Shane van Gisbergen: “I don’t really know. I haven’t thought about it. I definitely have a lot of years left in me. We’re lucky as race car drivers. We have a very long shelf life, you know? You see guys competitive till their late 40s, so I can go as long as I want. But I do have other things in racing I want to try. I still want to do some European stuff. I want to do Nürburgring 24. That’s on my list to do that properly. I want to do a bit more rally car driving. I got into that 2021-22. That’s a crazy sport, so I’d love to do more of that. But definitely for now, I want to stay in NASCAR and concentrate on that, but I don’t have a timeline. Two years ago, I wasn’t meant to be here, so I’m really happy here at the moment and can see myself doing it for a while. But it is a sport that fully consumes you, you know? I am very homesick. I miss home a lot, and there’s no time to get back there. I’m a long way from home. I’ll move back there as soon as I’m done racing, but yeah, to answer your question, there’s no timeline. I’m happy here for now.”
Justin, Ross Chastain had the high of winning the Coca-Cola 600, and since then, I think he only has two top-10s. Qualifying’s not been great, which probably puts him behind for the whole weekend, so where do you kind of assess where the No. 1 team is at going into the playoffs?
Justin Marks: “Yeah, that’s a great question. The No. 1 team is a very, very talented group of people; very motivated group of people and working very hard. We’re trying a lot of different things right now. We’ve got just a couple weeks left to try a couple things. I mean, the pace in the race, I think, has been pretty good. I think we’re able to make lemonade out of lemons a lot more often than not. I think that for us, we do have to get better on Saturday’s. We absolutely have to get better on Saturday’s if the No. 1 team is going to have an opportunity to deep run into the playoffs because, like you said, if you qualify 28th, it’s just so hard to pull yourself out of that. So that’s where the focus is.
I’ll say that, if we can get those Saturday’s to be better, if we can get the No. 1 team off the hauler faster in practice, better qualifying, better pit selections, and better position for strategy, then we’ll see what that group is capable of. My hope is that we’ll get there. There’s certainly as much fight in that team as there’s ever been. We’ve just got to keep working really, really hard.”
Justin, Shane was definitely, I would imagine, the goal of PROJECT 91 when you started that. I know a lot has gone into Connor (Zilisch) for this year, but do you have any update on any interest for PROJECT 91 going into 2026 and beyond?
Justin Marks: “ I love PROJECT 91. It’s near and dear to my heart. I think it’s important for the sport. I think it’s obviously been very creative to our business. We’ve been able to do big sponsorship deals that have come through PROJECT 91, and obviously great talent through PROJECT 91. So it’s an important mechanism in the business. It is a draw on the company. It is tough. I mean, like Daytona was really, really tough this year to take four cars there, which is why with the races we’re doing with Connor (Zilisch), we just wanted to do Daytona and then park it. I very much would like to keep that program alive. We’ve got a couple of fairly interesting opportunities with everything that we’re trying to do in the company to get us back into championship form.
It’s No. 85 on the list right now, but it’s not dead. There are conversations happening. There is a strategy around it. Just right now, we’ve got to get these three race cars running better on Sunday’s.”
What are your thoughts on racing here at Watkins Glen?
Shane van Gisbergen: “Yeah, it’s a really cool track. It’s like Phillip Island with walls. I feel like it reminds me of that track in Australia. It’s so fast and flowing. We were just having a little walk around and the surface has held up really well for how old it is now. It’s a proper ‘tighten-your-belts’ type road course with no room for error. The walls are so close and it’ll bite you really hard. But yeah, I like it. When you get in a good rhythm here and you can flow the car and try not to use the tire, it’s one of the best feelings in a race car ever around here. Just got to not hit the bus stop wall this year and I’ll be fine.”
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