By T.J. Buffenbarger
(August 8, 2026) — After the blockbuster announcement of Brent Marks selling his High Limit Racing team and charter to Chase Briscoe Racing, here are my takeaways from what I feel will be looked back upon in the future as a moment in the sport that signaled significant change.
- I have been around long enough to witness several moments when things in the sport of sprint car racing shifted dramatically. Saturday’s announcement of Brent Marks selling his High Limit Racing charter to Chase Briscoe and Bobby Hillin feels like one of those moments.
Many of us were skeptical, including myself, on what the value of a High Limit Racing charter franchise would end up being. The payoff on paper looked spectacular, but those of us in the sport long enough tend to view these things with caution and even skepticism because we have seen a lot of big promises go unfulfilled or not pan out.
With the sale of Rod Gross Motorsports charter to JST Motorsports and today’s announcement with Hillin and Briscoe acquiring a charter, the hard work Brad Sweet, Kyle Larson, and other staff members with High Limit and Floracing are starting to see their plans come to fruition.
The part that excites me about the announcement is having two people spearheading this acquisition that watched their fathers be involved in the sport with Briscoe’s father Kevin being a very talented driver and Hillin’s father owning sprint cars as part of Longhorn Racing. Instead of having private equity or someone that doesn’t know about the sport, Marks obtains a couple of owners that have passion for sprint car racing and a tremendous amount of marketing resources to throw at it.
To have Hillin, who attempted to spearhead a group to buy into a NASCAR charter last year, turn his attention to High Limit is eye opening to me. Obvious Hillin feels there is some value and potential future growth in that Charter value, otherwise they would not be making this investment.
If this trend continues the car owners entered on the ground floor at High Limit Racing and performed well enough to obtain a charter appear to have made a tremendous investment in their race teams that should pay some sort of dividend, should they sell a portion or all of it down the road.
- With two High Limit Racing charters changing hands over the past 30 days, the speculation becomes which team and/or owner might be next to look for a partner or sell their charter entirely?
Looking at the current car owner standings I could point out one or two that could be strong candidates to do so over the next year. It will be worth watching how long certain owners carry on as they do now and which ones that decide that the value of their charter has reached a point that they would be willing to sell a piece or all of it to someone, and who the buying party could be.
With the floor being raised significantly from the past month from the sale of these charters, I would be stunned if no moves were made during the off season with the existing teams.
- The Marks’ charter announcement on Saturday is more proof that High Limit’s hybrid of streaming for subscription on Floracing along with farming out broadcasts to Amazon Prime and FS1 is working.
The FS1 broadcasts have garnered some impressive numbers over the past two broadcasts, and Floracing continues to grow within racing and the other sports they stream.
The model of using the Floracing team and essentially pushing it out over FS1 minimal on staff changes has been a huge success and a win for the fans that attend races in person, which have the same feel to them as a normal High Limit Show and doesn’t take away from the in-person experience.
With the FS1 broadcasts getting most of the attention, I would not discount the Amazon Prime part of this. I have multiple friends that used to be heavily involved or worked in motorsports that are not Flo subscribers but tune in regularly to those Amazon events specifically.