There are very few teams in the NASCAR Cup Series, perhaps only Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, with more raw talent behind the wheel than Trackhouse Racing.
They have Ross Chastain, who came within a handful of laps of being the 2022 Cup Series champion. They have Connor Zilisch, the 19-year-old sensation who has been considered one of the sport's best prospects ever. They have Shane van Gisbergen, who is already arguably the greatest road course racer of all-time.
What do they have to show for it? Through 14 races in 2026, they have six top 10 finishes as an organization. They have more cars outside the top 25 in points than they do in the 16-driver Chase. And at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday, two of them couldn't even make it through the opening stage without falling apart.
Trackhouse Racing continues to be a weekly embarrassment (except for SVG), and it just keeps getting worse
For a team enduring the type of season Trackhouse is, there's no better opportunity for a get-right weekend than a trip to their home track. But apparently no one told whoever is building the brake rotors at Justin Marks' organization, because both Chastain's and Zilisch's went kaboom within laps of each other, and they finished in the bottom two positions at Nashville.
The sad part is that the No. 1 and No. 88 cars seemed to actually have some speed this past weekend for a change. Both had to start near the back based on the rainout qualifying metric, which penalized them after they were taken out in accidents during last week's Coca-Cola 600. At the time of their parts failures, Chastain had worked his way into the top 15 while Zilisch was just outside the top 20.
That's just the way it's been all season for the two of them. Either their cars break, they get wrecked through no fault of their own, or they're simply slow as molasses. Chastain, who hasn't even recorded a single top 15 finish on a non-drafting oval this year, is now down to a shockingly low 26th in points, while Zilisch is even further back in 34th. The only full-time driver lower than Zilisch is Cody Ware.
Both of them are far too talented to be running like this, even with one being a rookie. It is already long past time for Chastain to be actively looking for a way out of Trackhouse if he has any intention of competing for titles again (or at this point, just having a chance to win another race). If nothing changes in the next couple years, the same will apply to Zilisch.
In the meantime, maybe the biggest takeaway here is just how awesome van Gisbergen is. It's only his third full season driving on ovals and he's taking Trackhouse's tractors and starting to consistently run inside the top 10. His setup knowledge and adaptability are not matched by many in the Cup garage, making him virtually equipment-proof.
Sadly, it doesn't seem like his improvement is rubbing off on the rest of the program. In the span of only three years, Trackhouse has gone from the next great Cup Series powerhouse, to a punchline.
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