Credit where credit is due. That is perhaps what was on the mind of Brad Keselowski when he spoke candidly about a team owner who is not only a rival to him as a team owner but also one who has brought a huge competitive disadvantage to almost all NASCAR drivers, including him. The team owner in question is Justin Marks, and the reason why Keselowski praised him is SVG.

“I feel like he gets less credit. I don’t think Justin gets enough credit for the vision he had with SVG. He pulled a guy out of another country in a series that most of us know very little about, took a chance on him in a Cup car, then made the investment in him to run an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series,” Keselowski said on The Dale Jr. Download.

“The sample size was not outstanding, and then decided, ‘I’m going to go buy another charter, and I’m going to find a way to get this guy in a Cup car full time.’ That’s pretty gutsy, and it wasn’t just like an accident. He went out and found this guy, took a risk on him, and I really respect that about Justin. I don’t think he gets enough credit for that.”

Ever since he has taken the helm of Trackhouse Racing, Justin Marks has introduced newer, bolder ways to the craft of NASCAR team management. While some of his initiatives haven’t really stuck, others have truly helped his team and even the sport on a larger scale. One such initiative was Project 91, which introduced the world of NASCAR to Shane van Gisbergen in 2023.

The Australian Supercars star made history there as he fended off Justin Haley to score the victory, becoming the first driver to win his Cup debut in 60 years.

All it took was that one chance for him to become an instant favorite to win any NASCAR road course race he enters. And coming into the 2026 season, he has built on a very strong rookie campaign.

He finished the 2025 season with a final ranking of 12th, with 5 wins, 5 top fives, 7 top 10s, and 312 laps led. Not only that, he put up some other significant accomplishments, with a spot in the playoffs and a run to Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors. What is more, out of the six road courses on the schedule, he managed to win five of them.

And though oval courses happened to be the ones he generally struggled on, he registered an improvement there as well. After his title eligibility ended after the opening of the Round of 16, he closed out strong with a Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval win and steady improvement in the second half of the season on the oval tracks, a trend that included his first oval top 10, at Kansas Speedway in September.

Further, his victory at Watkins Glen in August, in just his 38th Cup Series start, made him the first driver to hit the five-win mark that quickly since fellow road-race ace Dan Gurney reached that plateau in just 13 starts back in 1968.

“It was kind of a season of two halves, it felt like. The first half was a lot of learning, but since Mexico, when we won our first race, it’s all kind of clicked, and you get that confidence and momentum, you know, and it’s just kind of built from Mexico. Yeah, the second half of the season’s made it pretty easy to forget about the first half,” Shane van Gisbergen said.

Back on August 8 last year, the New Zealander also signed a multiyear contract extension with Trackhouse Racing, keeping his future secure.

Seems like the team made the right decision keeping the Kiwi with them. And if the momentum of last year is anything to go by, then he is about to give tough competition to the other drivers on the grid.

Justin Marks on why Trackhouse spent millions on SVG

Given the success of the 36-year-old’s rookie season, Justin Marks shared his thoughts on SVG’s progression and their investment in him.

“That’s why we signed him to a multi-year deal as we did, because we know that they will come. The fact that he’s so quickly already starting to find his way into the top 10 on the ovals, I think that there’s a very, very high ceiling there that can make him remarkably dangerous,” Marks said.

The Trackhouse boss remarked that people spend years and years figuring out a way on difficult racetracks. But for SVG, they’re ‘throwing him to the wolves,’ asking him to figure it out, and all within 20 minutes of practice.

SVG’s best result on an oval track ended up being a 10th-place finish at Kansas, his first top 10 on an oval. That result came in the 31st race of the season. This season, his first top 10 on an oval came in the second race with a 6th-place finish at Atlanta, giving further signs of his rapid progression on ovals.

Beyond that, in the 4 races so far, he has managed 2 top 10s, 1 top 5, and is 5th in the driver rankings with 116 points.

Do you think he is a legit title contender for the ongoing season?