Trackhouse Racing's complacency drawing comparisons to Chip Ganassi Racing

When Justin Marks bought Chip Ganassi Racing in 2021, it was seen as a move that represented the new era of NASCAR. Instead, it's been more of the same.

With the team being owned by a young industry mogul in Marks and Pitbull, Trackhouse was seen as the team that would lead NASCAR into a future where brand identity in the sport would once more mean something, both on and off the racetrack.

With the teams of Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez both struggling to contend for victories in 2024, however, Trackhouse has started to attract warranted comparisons to the latter years of Ganassi, which gained a reputation in its latter years for being an organization that clouded its drivers' talents with mediocre cars.

From 2001-21, CGR won 20 races with six different drivers. A respectable mark, to be sure, but with the team being the home of such talents as Kurt Busch, Sterling Marlin, Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray, the number could've been much higher had the team been up to snuff with the top organizations in the sport.

Perhaps the biggest example of CGR's middling cars knocking its drivers down a peg is Larson, who earned his first six career wins for the team. After missing the playoffs in both 2014 and 2015, he finally notched his first playoff win in 2016.

Surely the floodgates would open for "Yung Money" - who at that point was billed as one of the best young drivers in the sport. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the case. While a few more wins and a couple decent postseason runs would ensue for Larson and the No. 42 team, it wasn't until he got to Hendrick Motorsports in 2021 that the racing world was finally able to see Larson's full potential.

2004 champion Kurt Busch was only able to win three races for the team from 2019-21, while his predecessor in the No. 1 car, McMurray, always seemed to be buried around the playoff cut line during his second stint with the team despite winning some of the sport's biggest races.

In 2022, it seemed that Trackhouse had finally broken free from the bonds of mediocrity that had plagued CGR for over a decade. Suarez collected his first career win at Sonoma, while Chastain won twice and made a Cinderella run to the Championship Four.

Two more wins came for Chastain in 2023, but the team's season-long effort - with Chastain being a second-round playoff exit and Suarez missing the postseason entirely - was a cause for concern.

Those concerns have been further exemplified in 2024, where Suarez's squeaker of a win at Atlanta is the only factor making sure Trackhouse isn't staring down the barrel of both drivers missing the playoffs.

With the Cup Series on a break until August 11, Chastain and Trackhouse can take solace in the fact that he's currently a part of the postseason picture, but seven measly points is all that separates him from missing the playoffs.

Speed has been an obvious issue for the team, as Chastain and Suarez have both rarely been seen putting together consistent top-five efforts.

Trackhouse can revel in Suarez's historic Atlanta win and Chastain's 2022 Championship Four appearance all it wants, but at some point, it must step up and beat the allegations that it is nothing more than a carbon copy of the middling that team it bought out just three years ago.