NASCAR Team Owner Wants To Move His Shop To Downtown Nashville – Complete With A Bar And Music Venue

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As far as bars in Nashville go, there’s not much that hasn’t already been done at this point.

But a bar in a NASCAR race shop? That would be a new one.

And it’s something Justin Marks wants to make a reality.

NASCAR is in Music City this weekend for the first time in over 10 years, and the atmosphere around the race is pretty electric.

But Justin Marks, owner of Trackhouse Racing which fields the #99 car for driver Daniel Suarez, already calls the Nashville area home. And Trackhouse Entertainment, the parent company of Trackhouse Racing which Marks owns alongside rapper Pitbull, is already based in Nashville as well.

So it only makes sense that he would want to bring his race team to Nashville too.

In an interview with NBC Sports, Marks said that he hopes to relocate the team to Music City by 2023.

“I’m right now looking at ways to put our race shop in downtown Nashville and have our race shop be a public attraction for all the Nashville tourists to come in.”

Now, there are already plenty of things for tourists and locals alike to do. But Marks wants to make Trackhouse Racing “Nashville’s NASCAR team.” So his vision is to make his shop somewhere that people will want to visit:

“Maybe that’s a music venue and bar in downtown Nashville that is over the top of the race shop or something like that…

We’re just looking at everything and saying, ‘How do we do things different? How do we become the team of the people? How do we get a community to rally around us like one of the local professional teams?’”

And he’s right – Nashville is a town that has rallied around its professional sports teams in recent years. When the Nashville Predators were in the Stanley Cup Finals, there were concerts on the street before games and fans packed watch parties on Lower Broadway. Same with the Tennessee Titans during their 2020 playoff run.

The enthusiasm for sports is there, as Marks already knows: He’s also part of the ownership group responsible for bringing IndyCar to Nashville for a street race this August, alongside names like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Justin Timberlake.

“Nashville, there’s just so much opportunity here, and it’s becoming such a sports town that it just made too much sense. It’s the perfect fit.”

And Marks has already found ways to tie his team to the Nashville community, with Daniel Suarez running a bright purple Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge car at this weekend’s race.

So what will the Trackhouse Racing shop look like when it opens its doors in Nashville for the 2023 NASCAR season?

I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

But it’s safe to say that there won’t be anything else like it in downtown Nashville.

And in a city with so many bars owned by big-named artists that are pretty much all the same, that’s a good thing in my book.

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