Up to Speed: The Strange Season of Opposites for Trackhouse Racing

With eight races to go until the Cup Series playoffs begin, Trackhouse Racing is not in a bad spot.

Daniel Suarez scored a thrilling victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway early in the season, beating Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch to the line in a three-wide photo finish.

The win puts the No. 99 team in great position to reach the postseason. Ross Chastain is still looking for a victory in 2024, but he currently stands 12th in the playoff grid, 93 points above the cut line. Chances are good that the No. 1 team will be in the playoffs as well.

Yet other than being in playoff position, Suarez and Chastain have had completely opposite seasons. Suarez may be the one with the victory, but that win is one of the few good races he’s had in 2024.

The No. 99 team did not get a second top-10 finish until seven races later at Texas Motor Speedway. Suarez then went through another slump where his best finish in seven starts was 14th. The drought finally ended with a ninth place at Iowa Speedway, giving Suarez a third top-10 finish.

Unfortunately for the No. 99 team, races like what happened at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend have been far more typical.

Suarez plummeted through the field at the start, wrestling with a car that apparently had no speed or handling. He was one of a handful of drivers multiple laps down once the long rain delay arrived.

However, a flurry of yellow flags came out in the last quarter of the race as drivers battled to get a feel for the wet weather tires. The cautions allowed Suarez to get back on the lead lap, though he still finished a disappointing 21st. Outside of a few bright spots, he’s had a rough season.

Chastain, on the other hand, has been decent almost everywhere.

If it seems like the No. 1 team finishes somewhere between fourth and 15th every week, you are not imagining things. Through 18 races this season, Chastain has no top-three finishes, but has only finished worse than 15th three times.

In fact, two of his finishes outside that range were caused by last-lap crashes at Texas Motor Speedway and the Daytona 500. Even at New Hampshire, where Chastain spun out with 67 laps to go in the scheduled race distance, he still clawed his way back to finish 10th.

It was a good recovery under tough conditions, but it was not the breakthrough win that the team really needed.

Chastain is far from the first driver to have a consistently decent season. A good example from recent memory is Matt Kenseth’s 2010 campaign. Kenseth was never able to win a race that year, concluding his season with six top fives and 15 top 10s. He and his Roush Fenway Racing team only led 108 laps all year. They came close to winning a few times, but the No. 17 lacked the raw speed necessary to outrun its competitors. On the other hand, Kenseth had no DNFs in 2010 and only finished worse than 20th four times. Remarkably, he completed all but eight of the 10,778 laps run that year. Consistently decent was the No. 17 team’s ceiling.

Getting back to Trackhouse Racing, how would you approach the second half of the season knowing that your two teams have taken divergent paths so far?

Suarez and the No. 99 team still have a couple more months to experiment and try new setups and strategies, but the playoffs are approaching quickly. If Suarez cannot get things turned around soon, he will be a likely first round elimination.

Meanwhile, Chastain could emerge as a championship contender if he and the No. 1 team find a little extra speed. Currently, he has banked only one playoff point. Chastain may be able to avoid elimination for a while, but eventually he is going to face a serious points deficit compared to the other playoff drivers unless he starts winning.

The good news for Trackhouse is that the Cup Series is heading to Nashville Superspeedway this weekend. In addition to being a home game for the organization, which conducts some of its business operations in Music City, Nashville has been a good track for both of its drivers.

Chastain won there last year and has never finished outside the top five at Nashville in three starts. If there is one track where he has experience running up front, it’s this one. Suarez also has respectable results at Nashville, finishing seventh, 15th, and 12th in his three starts there. All of those races did come with previous crew chief Travis Mack in the pits, but new crew chief Matt Swiderski should have a good baseline for how to set up the No. 99 to Suarez’s liking. Nashville is a great opportunity for both drivers to score a good result.

Meanwhile, Trackhouse continues to face questions about its future lineup. The organization must decide soon what to do with drivers like Shane van Gisbergen and Zane Smith for 2025. Trackhouse is rumored to be interested in one of the charters from Stewart-Haas Racing but still needs to finalize Suarez’s new contract. If the team is planning to expand next season, having its current cars running well will be important.

Even though Trackhouse does not have the overall speed it had in 2022, it still feels like this team is on an upward trajectory.

Justin Marks and his associates may be laying the foundation for a future powerhouse team. But before that day comes, they need to figure out how to get Suarez better results week in and week out and how to get Chastain back to victory lane. The second half of this season will determine if Trackhouse takes a big step forward in 2024, or if growing pains hold the organization back.