Basketball fans may not have gotten to hear “Timber” throughout the 2020 NBA playoffs, but racing fans were treated on Friday morning to their own delicious Pitbull joint as the rapper and entrepreneur announced his investment in NASCAR’s Trackhouse Racing team online, with his song “I Believe That We Will Win” coursing underneath the announcement video.
I’ve been a fan of the @NASCAR story since the movie ‘Days of Thunder’, now I’m an official co-owner of the @TeamTrackhouse racing team. Thank you Justin Marks, Ty Norris & Daniel Suarez for the great opportunity. This is a great way to celebrate my 40th bday, so Get Ready! Dale! pic.twitter.com/vDA199TE0h
— Pitbull (@pitbull) January 15, 2021
Trackhouse is in its infancy as a NASCAR team and is set to debut the No. 99 car and driver Daniel Suarez in the 2021 Daytona 500, which is scheduled next month on Valentine’s Day. Suarez is a trail-blazer among Mexican-born stock car drivers, which makes the Miami-born Pitbull, an activist in the Latinx community, a logical match for Trackhouse.
Not only will Pitbull serve as an executive partner for Trackhouse, he will be the team’s brand and philanthropic ambassador as well.
This is all a heck of a way to get on the map as a newly formed NASCAR team, and follows in the path of more diverse NASCAR teams springing up over the past year. After Bubba Wallace rose to prominence in 2020, Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin announced the formation of their own team, while Trackhouse adds a Latinx-owned team with a native Mexican driver to the mix for 2021 as well.