MYERSTOWN, Pa. — Brent Marks and Allen Murray have upped their existing partnership to assemble Murray-Marks Motorsports, a new-look sprint car team that hits the ground running tonight at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C.
Marks, the 30-year-old Pennsylvania Posse star whose 11 wins in 2021 are tied for fourth nationally, has been hamstrung running his family-owned race team this year despite great success.
Murray, whose M&M Painting & Construction has sponsored Marks since 2016, now bears enough financial brunt to be considered part owner of Marks’ current race team.
They’ll run a handpicked schedule in 2022, with the goal of building a team capable of winning the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car Series championship one day.
“I’m really excited about it,” Marks said. “Allen and his whole family are great people and have stuck behind me 100 percent since 2016. It’s been a great partnership and a great friendship.
“Just really excited about what we’ve been able to put together here,” Marks said. “It’s gonna be cool. We’re going to build something really special I think, hoping we have a lot of success here in the future.
The deal that was announced Monday has been in the works since April, right after Marks split from CJB Motorsports.
The Murray-Marks partnership started five years ago when Murray wanted to fund a young racer near his Reading, Pa., hometown.
Murray, a former dirt late model racer, resides in San Antonio but never wanted to detach from the fervent Pennsylvania racing scene. A mutual friend connected the two and the rest is history.
Outside of Marks, Murray fields entries for Rick Eckert when the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame member isn’t racing in his own equipment.
Now Murray increases his involvement with Marks’ race team, sharing administrative duties and bearing the financial load.
“When it comes to the decision making, we’re going to treat it like an actual partnership: we’re going to make the decisions together,” Marks said. “As far as ownership, I already own everything. It’s not like he needs to buy into it. … He’s just going to come in and finance the majority of it. It’s a partnership in that way.
“He’s just stepping up a lot there in the sponsorship end of it,” Marks added. “With the step up comes the change in the team name.”
Murray’s emergence in 2016 built toward Marks’ World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Car Series run from ‘17 to ‘19.
But Marks only won four times in that span and when finances and his frame of mind grew rickety he realized he couldn’t sustain that lifestyle. At least not yet.
A 16-month tenure with CJB Motorsports, from the beginning of 2020 to April 2021, has brought Marks back to the beginning: his own equipment, with extra help from Murray.
Marks isn’t rejoining the World of Outlaws quite yet. Rather, he’ll chase big money events and race in his backyard of Pennsylvania.
“Back when I joined the Outlaws that was the only option I could come up with to do it professionally,” Marks said. “But things have changed the last four years, and things have definitely stepped up a lot throughout the country. Your options are wider now than back then.
“Right now it makes more sense [for a true outlaw schedule],” Marks added. “And it’s not like the Outlaws aren’t a viable option at all in the future. The funding is there if we want to do it. We’re just kind of basing everything that’s going on in the country right now and what makes most sense for us.
“Do we want to spend 20 or 30 percent more of our budget to follow a series, when we can make the same kind of money doing what we want to do?” Marks continued.
“I just want good, solid people here who want to do the Outlaw tour again one day,” Marks said. “That’s something that’s never out of the question.”
Spending more time with his wife, Megan, and 4-year-old daughter, McKenna, of late also gives Marks good reason to stay closer to home.
“I’ve always said, when I left the Outlaw tour to go drive for CJB, I want to make sure I’m 100 percent doing it the right way, that I feel is the right way,” Marks said. “And I was getting to that point before I made the decision to go to [CJB Motorsports].
“I felt like I missed the first three years of [McKenna’s] life,” Marks said. “I was so financially strained I couldn’t be there enough for her, and also my wife. That goes into my decision, when I say I want to do the Outlaw tour again and how I want to do it right.
“That includes finding the time to travel back and forth, or getting the time for [my family] to come out with me more often than what it was before,” he added.
“I want to make sure everything is in place, that I feel 100 percent comfortable it’s going to be successful,” Marks said. “That’s what we need to build. That’s what Allen and I are going to try and build together.”