\n
SONOMA, Calif. , Jun 13 (AP) \u2014 Of all the surprising developments to ponder during this one-week break in a highly entertaining NASCAR Cup Series season, the emergence of Trackhouse Racing might be the most unlikely of all.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right, the 2-year-old team co-owned by Pitbull and piloted by two drivers who had never won a Cup race three months ago. Trackhouse has already racked up three victories and 15 top-10 finishes while producing some of the most memorable moments of the year to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be such a new group, this isn\u2019t supposed to happen,\u201d driver Ross Chastain said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got two fast cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Worldwide and his deep-pocketed co-owner, Justin Marks, could be celebrating even bigger achievements in the months to come with two compelling drivers and two diverse, talented teams behind them.<\/p>\n
Daniel Su\u00e1rez\u2019s inaugural Cup Series victory at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday was the latest superlative in a season-long series of encouraging performances from Trackhouse. Chastain already got the team in the winner\u2019s circle with his first two career victories at Circuit of the Americas and Talladega, and both drivers appear capable of keeping Trackhouse\u2019s versions of the Next Gen race car near the top of the leaderboard all season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not surprised that we\u2019re a winning race team,\u201d Marks said after watching Su\u00e1rez raise a celebratory goblet in wine country. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have started this project if I didn\u2019t truly believe the opportunity existed to build a new race team in this sport that could win. It\u2019s just happened really quickly. That\u2019s been the surprise. But it kind of makes sense, too, because we\u2019ve got such great people that work so hard, and the promise of this car is being delivered every single weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, it\u2019s a remarkably fast return on Marks\u2019 investment after he bought Chip Ganassi Racing\u2019s operation for the new season. The introduction of the Next Gen car theoretically opened the door for any team good enough to walk through it, and the new Trackhouse mix of former Ganassi employees has done splendidly so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just having fun,\u201d said Travis Mack, Su\u00e1rez\u2019s crew chief. \u201cI\u2019ve never been at a place that\u2019s had so much fun. We\u2019re building fast race cars, and everybody is enjoying work. It\u2019s just a great place to be right now. Team chemistry is amazing between (Chastain\u2019s No.) 1 and (Su\u00e1rez\u2019s No.) 99. It really feels like one team loading two cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s victory in wine country was also Mack\u2019s first win as a crew chief. He believes he was Trackhouse\u2019s second hire, and he exemplifies the team\u2019s willingness to take risks: Mack is not an engineer like most Cup Series crew chiefs, but a onetime shock specialist and front-end mechanic who worked his way into the leadership position.<\/p>\n
Trackhouse also hopes to be part of a surge in racing interest in Latino culture when combined with developments such as Sergio Perez\u2019s success in Formula One and Pato O\u2019Ward\u2019s growing profile in IndyCar. Su\u00e1rez and Pitbull, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, are both eager to captivate Hispanic fans who haven\u2019t traditionally seen themselves in the top levels of North American auto racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrackhouse is a team that anybody and everybody can be a fan of,\u201d Marks said. \u201cTo me, this is sort of a representation of what America stands for. It\u2019s a place that you can come with big dreams, and you can work hard to achieve those dreams. … That just shows the amazing place we live. It\u2019s great to be able to write those stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trackhouse\u2019s teams are diverse, as anybody who watched the crew\u2019s joyous celebrations of Su\u00e1rez\u2019s victory could see. Su\u00e1rez also has a lead engineer from Mexico City, although Jose Blasco-Figueroa missed the Sonoma race because he was ill.<\/p>\n
Blasco-Figueroa called Su\u00e1rez in tears moments after the driver got out of the car from his historic victory. They\u2019ll celebrate together with the rest of the team \u2014 after Su\u00e1rez gets back from a trip to Mexico to see his family this week.<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez loves being part of this success story \u2014 and he\u2019s even happier after finally getting a win in his 195th career Cup start. Su\u00e1rez was Trackhouse\u2019s only driver last year, and Marks confidently stuck with him after a debut season with only three top-10 finishes, none higher than fourth.<\/p>\n
With a new car underneath him, Su\u00e1rez says he firmly believes Trackhouse is a championship-contending organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beautiful part is we get stronger as we go,\u201d Su\u00e1rez said. \u201cIf you asked me that question three months ago, I would have said, \u2018Man, we have the potential, but we have work to do.\u2019 Two months ago, I was starting to believe more. A month ago, I would have said, \u2018Heck yeah.\u2019 And now, we\u2019re here, and we just keep getting strong. And I guarantee you, in a month from now, we\u2019re going to be stronger than right now. We\u2019re going to keep working.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was amazing. We did a lot of things right, but we believe the car could have been a little better. When you look at the big picture and always try to see what you could have done better or different, that\u2019s when you become a great team, and I feel like we\u2019re on our way there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SONOMA, Calif. , Jun 13 (AP) \u2014 Of all the surprising developments to ponder during this one-week break in a highly entertaining NASCAR Cup Series season, the emergence of Trackhouse Racing might be the most unlikely of all. That\u2019s right, the 2-year-old team co-owned by Pitbull and piloted by two drivers who had never won […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}