Chip Ganassi — businessman, former racer, and the IndyCar team owner who had won four consecutive CART championships between 1996 and 1999 — acquired a majority stake in Felix Sabates' NASCAR operation in 2001. Team SABCO had been active since 1989 and brought with it an established infrastructure, garage facilities in Concord, North Carolina, and a history of Cup Series competition. Ganassi entered the series under the banner of Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, inheriting the organisation's prior results and history.
The team competed under various partnership banners through its twenty-year run. In 2009 Ganassi merged his NASCAR operations with those of Dale Earnhardt Inc., racing as Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates through 2013. The Earnhardt name was dropped in 2014 after Ganassi acknowledged that DEI owner Teresa Earnhardt had never been substantively involved in the team's day-to-day operations. Rob Kauffman, chairman of the Race Team Alliance, purchased a stake in the team in 2015, while Felix Sabates stepped back from active ownership after the 2020 season.
The team's NASCAR programme fielded cars under manufacturer relationships with Dodge and later Chevrolet and Ford depending on the era, maintaining technical partnerships typical of mid-tier Cup operations while benefiting from Ganassi's broader racing infrastructure.
The Cup programme gave opportunities to a long roster of drivers across its lifespan. Kyle Petty, Joe Nemechek, Sterling Marlin and Jimmy Spencer drove for the organisation in its earlier years. Juan Pablo Montoya, who had won the 2000 Indianapolis 500 with Ganassi's IndyCar team, crossed over to NASCAR in 2007, bringing a high profile to the programme. Jamie McMurray, who became a consistent front-runner for the team, won the 2010 Daytona 500 and the 2010 Brickyard 400 while driving for Ganassi. Kyle Larson joined the programme and showed exceptional pace before his departure in 2020, and Kurt Busch drove for the team in its final years. Ross Chastain was among the last drivers to represent the Ganassi NASCAR programme before the sale.
McMurray's Daytona 500 victory in 2010 gave Chip Ganassi Racing a landmark win in NASCAR's most prestigious race. Combined with victories in the Indianapolis 500, the Brickyard 400, and the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 2010-2011 period made Ganassi the first team owner in history to have won all four of North America's most important races within a twelve-month span. Juan Pablo Montoya's tenure with the team was notable for its competitive intensity on superspeedways and road courses, reflecting the crossover appeal Ganassi cultivated between open-wheel and stock car racing.
In 2021, Chip Ganassi accepted an unsolicited purchase offer from former CGR Xfinity Series driver Justin Marks, who was building what would become Trackhouse Racing. The transaction included the team's two charters — covering the No. 1 and No. 42 cars — and was finalised at the conclusion of the 2021 season. The NASCAR assets were absorbed into Trackhouse Racing for the 2022 season, with the cars renumbered and the driver lineup restructured under new ownership. Ganassi subsequently focused exclusively on his IndyCar Series programme, where the organisation continued to compete and win championships.
Chip Ganassi Racing's NASCAR programme represented a sustained effort by one of motorsport's most successful multi-discipline owners to compete at the highest level of American stock car racing. The team provided a competitive home for drivers transitioning from open-wheel backgrounds, maintained a presence through changing manufacturer relationships and the sport's evolving charter system, and contributed wins at some of NASCAR's most storied events. Its transition into Trackhouse Racing marked one of the notable ownership changes of the early 2020s Cup Series era.