Four NASCAR teams at a crossroads: Trackhouse, RFK, RCR and Legacy
2025-02-11
Category: sports

Trackhouse Racing started earning trophies in its second season as both Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez combined to win three races in 2022. But in the last two years, their full-time drivers have combined for four wins. They have an additional full-time teammate in Shane van Gisbergen this year, as they have reached the new NASCAR maximum three chartered teams. SVG won in his first Cup race in 2023, when he drove a Trackhouse car in the inaugural Chicago street course event. Additionally, they have expanded into professional motorcycle racing in MotoGP. Did Trackhouse have too much success too soon? And how will having a third, full-time car impact the organization? Is it going to be a contender for championships or just a staple of the playoffs without any real title oomph? As we enter 2025, we're going to take a look at organizations that could be at a crossroads. And Trackhouse seems to top the list.&nbsp; "You mentioned crossroads," Trackhouse founder and co-owner Justin Marks said when asked about if his organization is at a crossroads. "I think now is when we really start to focus on what it's going to take to be a very competitive enterprise and go put the best cars on the racetrack, the best people working on them. "That’s where I think now that our growth phase of NASCAR is sort of completed from a competition standpoint [for us] — we just really, really focus on the competition side of the business. And that's really going to be a core tenant in 2025 because it's going to set the stage for the future of the business." Trackhouse isn’t the only team whose performance this year could shape how the organization performs for years to come. Three others come to mind: RFK Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Legacy Motor Club. We’ll break it all down by organization.  TRACKHOUSE RACING Ross Chastain knows the pain of not making the playoffs. He knew it in his first three seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series when he went winless. Then, he finished second in the standings in 2022 and then ninth in 2023. That playoff string was short-lived. In 2024, he didn’t win until the playoffs started. His six top-five finishes in 2024 were his fewest since joining Trackhouse. "What Justin wants us to do is win," Chastain said. "I know everybody says that, and it's easy to say it, and it's not as simple as putting a part on the car. "But [it’s] investing in the right people, investing in the right tools for the people to use and those people making the right decisions, the best decisions they can make, are going to be crucial." For all the hoopla and debate over Chastain and how he races, he needs to win. He carries one of the most high-profile sponsorships from Anheuser-Busch. Chastain and crew chief Phil Surgen enter their fifth season working together. There are only two active, Cup driver-crew chief pairings that started together before them. And he is the Alpha Male in an organization that wants to be the "it" team. Suarez, though, is the one who could be on the hot seat — or maybe not. He has two wins in three years but an average finish of 18th. He does attract sponsors. And as a Mexican driver for an organization co-owned by Latin megastar Pitbull, a separation would seem harder from an optics and sponsorship perspective than from the performance side. The 33-year-old Suarez has been cut by teams in his career, so he knows the pressure is on. "In 2022, when it was the first year for the [NASCAR] NextGen car, everyone was new, and everyone was learning from everything. And I believe that some teams got out of the gate extremely strong and some other teams were a little bit behind," Suarez said. "Trackhouse and Chevrolet — we were one of the teams that were out of the gate extremely strong, and that was amazing. We took advantage of some of those opportunities, and we also didn't take advantage of some of those opportunities. And since 2022 really, our performance has declined a little bit every year." Suarez, though, believes his team is headed in the right direction. "The 99 [team] really got a little better internally in 2024," Suarez said. "With that being said, I believe that we still need speed. "We still need to be faster, and those are some of the things that we have to work as a company to continue to be better because we knew that if we continue to do exactly the same things, we're going to continue to get the same results. And we need to do something a little bit different." Making things even more complicated is that rising superstar Connor Zilisch is waiting in the wings for a Cup ride. If his Xfinity rookie season (at JR Motorsports) goes well, who will get pushed aside? Zane Smith already found that out the hard way (Smith has landed at Front Row Motorsports) when NASCAR decided that no current four-car team could expand beyond the new three-car limit. The wrench in all this is Shane van Gisbergen and his development.&nbsp; In his first full season of Cup racing, the three-time Supercars champion from New Zealand still needs time to learn. But he and the team will want results. "I know I can do the job," van Gisbergen said. "Justin has been awesome with giving me everything I need to immerse myself here and learn. It’s just time from now. I know I can get there. It's just how long it's going to take on the oval side." But it’s time for Trackhouse to perform. "When I first started Trackhouse, the idea of success to me as a business looked like a three-car team that was competing for a championship," Marks said. "And so we've been in the growth phase for the last couple of years trying to get to that point.&nbsp; "Well, now we're there. There's really not much more to grow in NASCAR. So now the focus really becomes on operations and technology and really the competition side of it. I'm a competitor. I want to get all three of our cars to [the championship at] Phoenix every year, and that's going to take investments in engineering and quality control and assembly and everything that we do in the shop."  RFK RACING Trackhouse wasn’t the only playoff organization to add a third car. RFK Racing did as well.&nbsp; Much like Trackhouse, RFK put one driver in the playoffs last year and then the driver who was outside the playoffs won a race during the postseason. That's a great achievement for confidence. But it comes with the rude realization that, if it had happened earlier, a playoff bid would have come with it. Brad Kesleowski and Chris Buescher make a solid duo, and now adding need-to-prove-it-now driver Ryan Preece gives this organization added depth. "I know the talk has been from the get-go is that a third team really, really just makes sense," said Buescher, who missed the playoffs by six points last year. "There's way more positive to outweigh any small amount of negative that may be just some growing pains. "But we've been a three-, four-car team before, so it's not like we don't remember how that's done. It’s just a matter of getting people in place and getting parts built up and inventory and being ready to hit the ground running." Both Trackhouse and RFK have something else in common. If they can show potential championship-caliber performance, they will likely be organizations that would be attractive if a new manufacturer wants to come to play in NASCAR.&nbsp; Yes, Trackhouse (Chevy) and RFK (Ford) have relatively strong ties to their manufacturers, but money talks. And if they could be the No. 1 team in a new manufacturer stable, they have shown they have the ownership chops to take chances and the vision that would be attractive to those wanting to spend millions to enter the sport. RFK has also added another alliance. It already had one with Rick Ware Racing (which likely helped in it leasing a charter for Preece this year), and now it has one with Haas Factory Team, too. Keselowski also has a new crew chief in Jeremy Bullins, who he worked with at Team Penske. "We’ve brought a lot of people in with new ideas, fresh ideas, that we've been able to see some pretty immediate gains out of — at least with what we can tell from not being on the track," Keselowski said last month. "Also, with bringing in a partner team, with Haas Factory Team, [there's] a lot of great ideas there as well. I feel like we're doing all the things we need to break out of being kind of this challenger, contender to being a real threat to go deeper into the playoffs and win multiple races with all of our cars."  RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING While the first two organizations on this list have made the playoffs consistently the last few years, RCR has not. They hired Kyle Busch to come over in 2023 in hopes of raising their program. He won three races that year but none in 2024 (albeit he had a pair of second-place finishes that easily could have been victories). Austin Dillon won a controversial Richmond race in 2024 — one that NASCAR deemed included moves that were so aggressive at the end that it wouldn’t allow him to use the win to make the playoffs. That was likely a $3 million swing, considering the amount of bonus money involved for making the playoffs versus not making it. And that's because charter team payouts include a portion based on points' finishing positions in the previous two seasons. "Every season is pivotal," said Dillon, a grandson of Childress who will likely take over the operations in the years to come. "Obviously, last year we underperformed a little bit. We were able to go to victory lane one time with the No. 3 car at Richmond. "Kyle was very close at multiple races. ... It could be a total different season [last year]. If you take three of those [potential victories] and make them points' wins, it's a big season for RCR. I love the new guys that we've brought in to make RCR better." While Busch’s at-track crew is primarily the same, Dillon has a new crew chief in Richard Boswell, who won races with Chase Briscoe at Stewart-Haas Racing. The team has added to its competition department, including John Klausmeier coming from SHR to be the team’s technical director. "[We’ve changed] more so shop guys behind the scenes, people building cars, engineering group leaders in those departments and being able to facilitate fresher ideas and different builds on our race cars is definitely what's different," Busch said. "So hopefully we capitalize on all that from the shop and it makes our road group look better." Beyond the dollars, RCR enters the season with questions about Busch and his future. With a base three-year deal, 2025 will probably determine whether he stays and if he does, whether that is short term (through options) or with a new longer-term contract. He is coming off a career-worst 20th in the standings and rides a 57-race winless streak into 2025. "You’ve got to win, right?" Busch said. "Unfortunately, we weren’t able to win last year."  LEGACY MOTOR CLUB&nbsp; One team that needs to show improvement and show it now is Legacy. The team had an awful season last year with Erik Jones finishing 28th in the standings (with a career-low two top-10 finishes) and John Hunter Nemechek at 34th. Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson is now the majority owner and recruited investment firm Knighthead Capital Management to help buy out team founder Maury Gallagher from much of his initial investment. The team hired Brian Campe away from Hendrick Motorsports to lead the competition department and former SHR crew chief Chad Johnston has joined the organization as manager of race engineering.&nbsp; The drivers have new crew chiefs, with Jones working with Ben Beshore, who was paired with Nemechek for most of last year. Nemechek has Travis Mack, who came from Kaulig Racing. "I feel like his tools will be better this year, and what he can work with will be better," Jones said about Beshore. "So I’m excited to work with him. Ben, I feel like, is a sharp guy, We’ve been in a lot of the same places, but never worked directly with each other. So looking forward to getting some more time [with him]." Johnson knew 2024 would be tough in a switch to Toyota along with the philosophy that the organization wouldn’t form an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing. They hope that by building their own processes and having their own information database that they won’t have to share, it will pay dividends in the future. But if they are not competitive now, it won’t matter. Sponsors are already tough to secure and struggling performance would likely make the organization more reliant on drivers who bring sponsorship instead of making talent-based decisions for the seat. Then again, the investment by Knighthead could also take off some of the pressure. Johnson is in some ways where Marks was a few years ago in trying to establish a Cup program but also looking at other forms of motorsports. In other words, Legacy remains in a growth phase, both on the track and off. "[Knighthead] will provide Legacy MC with the resources and guidance needed to push for championships and solidify our place in NASCAR for years to come." Johnson said. "Having Knighthead on board will not only strengthen our racing efforts but also enhance the fan experience and expand our reach in the global motorsports ecosystem, not limited to NASCAR."&nbsp; Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.