Justin Marks, who is the principle owner of Trackhouse Racing, says his decision to sign the take it or leave it charter system extension agreement with NASCAR was born from a conviction that this moment was always going to come and there was ultimately little room for either side to budge.
The comments were made during his weekly interview segment on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Speedway with Dave Moody.
Marks signed the agreement alongside 14 of the 17 teams with 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports ultimately refusing to sign by a deadline of Midnight on Saturday morning after being presented the offer at 6 p.m. on Friday night.
Also Read: NASCAR makes bold move to end charter negotiations but two teams didn’t budge It was the culmination, maybe, of two years of back and forth volleying between the sanctioning body and the teams that compete in the Cup Series over revenue sharing, governance and the complete machinations of all parties therein .
“This is something we’ve been working on for two years, two-plus years, and in the course of that time, it’s a very, very detailed complex agreement,” Marks said. “It’s not just about money. It’s not just about terms. There’s a lot of things in there that detail the entire operating relationship in all facets between teams and NASCAR. Over the course of two years, it’s changed a lot. There’s been a lot of meetings.
‘This is important to us.’ ‘This is fine.’ ‘Change this.’
“It’s been kind of a living document that has changed a lot as these conversations have taken place. But for me, and I can only speak for me, in the back of my mind, if they don’t put a deadline on it — well, the deadline is when we go racing next year — if the day doesn’t come when finally someone goes ‘we’re done here and we’ve taken as long as we need,’ then it will never come and it will never end. So me, personally, as we’ve had these conversations, I was anticipating the day that NASCAR would come and say ‘this is it. We’re done. We’ve addressed all these issues and you know where we won’t move, we’ve agreed on 90 percent or 75 percent of it (so) it’s time to get this thing done and start building our future together.
“That day came last week. I sort of guessed in the back of my mind that NASCAR wanted to put this to bed before we started the playoffs.”
Also Read: Brad Keselowski says time was right for RFK Racing to reach charter deal with NASCAR Marks said publicly, similar to Brad Keselowski on Saturday during a media availability , that there are things that he likes and things he doesn’t, and that’s the nature of any negotiating process.
“As far as how I feel about it, look, and I’ve expressed this to NASCAR, there are things I like and don’t like about it, some things that would be different than I wanted it to be and there are going to be some challenges for both sides in trying to get the best deal for them as possible, obviously,” Marks said.
“And, there was some consensus in the group that this is where we were going to end up, where we were going to net up and we had to make some decisions. As you can imagine, a lot of intra-team talking as we approached Friday night and sort of anticipated where everyone was at. The general consensus was (that) we’re tired. We have fought as much as we can fight and we can live with this deal. We can sign it and go on down the road.
“From Trackhouse, we didn’t get everything we wanted but we got some of what we wanted and at the end of the day, the agreement is one I can build a business around and embrace what’s in it and go on ahead. There’s a couple that don’t feel that way, they didn’t sign it, and I don’t know what the future is going to look like for them. It’s not really something I’m so concerned with because the way I look at it is Trackhouse isn’t one of 16 teams that has a partnership with the league, Trackhouse has a partnership with the league. It’s not perfect but I can live with it and go on down the road and we’ll work on working with NASCAR to promote the sport and grow the sport and that’s where we ended up.”
Since then, some team owners have said anonymously that NASCAR is similar to a communist regime, that they were coerced to sign the deal or that this was like a gun to their head as the league said anyone who didn’t sign would have their charters revoked, presumably at the end of the season.
Marks fielded that question too.
“I think everyone can interpret it in their own way,” Marks said. “For me, regardless of how you want to build a narrative around it. Ultimately, it’s NASCAR’s sport and they said, ‘We are done negotiating here, this is the deal, it’s not going to change.’
“Ultimately, we had to make a decision and I looked at that and I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere so we’re going to sign it.’ You can interpret that anyway you want. Every team and team owner has their own relationship with NASCAR and mine, the philosophy of mine is always coming from a place of partnership and collaboration so I don’t necessarily feel like it was that way.
“I do understand why some feel that way but none of the narrative around my relationship with NASCAR would lead me to a place where I would say there is a gun to my head. You choose to participate in the sport or not and it’s a living breathing relationship; it changes all the time. The sport grows and changes and yeah, I don’t know what to add to that beyond we worked hard for two years to get to a place. And ultimately the day was going to come that NASCAR would say ‘its time to sign this thing and get on down the road.’”
Also Read: Joey Logano wins his way into NASCAR playoff second round; mixed results for others So then the question was, if 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports are holding out with the expectation that there is still more negotiating to be done? Did Marks feel like there was any room for that from NASCAR whatsoever?
“No, not to me,” he said.
“I don’t know what the communication is between 23XI and NASCAR has been. To me, the narrative has been ‘we have worked really hard on this and this is where I feel like we’re comfortable putting this to bed.
“What happens from here on out, I cant guess and it’s unprecedented territory. I really admire 23XI’s conviction and commitment and how hard they are fighting for themselves and the teams in this sport but I just don’t know what happens from here. I do know my ink is on the paper, their ink is on the paper and we’re going to try to go win at Watkins Glen.”
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