MIAMI — Pitbull the educator, the motivator and now the NASCAR team owner is a lot like Pitbull the entertainer. He's uncontained energy and a fountain of endless optimism. He punctuates sentences with catchphrases, wears an ever-present smile and is prone to unleash Spanish phrases at a moment's notice.
Trackhouse Racing Team has learned this firsthand in the last month, since the Cuban-American rapper officially joined the team in an ownership role in January.
"He's one of these guys that really commands a room," Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks said. "He's got such a big personality, he's so passionate about his mission, the things he's dedicated to, the places he's trying to carve in the world — he's been fantastic from Day One."
On Feb. 2, Pitbull, Marks and Daniel Suarez, Trackhouse's lone driver, sat in front of camera screens across the Southeastern United States to discuss their new venture. For the first six or seven minuets, Marks and Suarez were the only ones present at the Zoom news conference, and then Pitbull flashed across the screen.
"I apologize for being a little late," the Miami-born musician said, then offered up a distinctly South Florida excuse, "Got caught up in a jam on the way here to the school."
His presence was unmistakable as he sat in an office at SLAM! Miami, his charter school. He smiled and laughed, and shouted about his passion for this new venture. It had been bubbling in his mind for the better part of a decade, since he opened his first SLAM school in the Little Havana neighborhood.
The musician — who intersperses his songs with Spanish phrases, and raps about partying and his hometown — is now one of NASCAR's most unlikely ambassadors and he will be the grand marshal for the Daytona 500 on Sunday in Daytona Beach.
"Especially in these times that we're living in right now, the most important thing is just let everybody know out there that there's only one race and the most important race, and that's the human race," said Pitbull, whose real name is Armando Perez. "That's what these races are about at this point. It's just bringing the sport, creating the culture, motivating everybody out there and letting them know that, hey, through these races, through the cars and through our stories we just want everybody out there to enjoy. And we're going to utilize it as a form of unifying everybody."
One of the phrases Pitbull uses is "the law of attraction." He's a believer and said NASCAR has been attracting him for almost a decade.
He first found interest in the sport by watching Tom Cruise's "Days of Thunder," so he brought a NASCAR car to SLAM on the day it opened in 2013.
"If you would have seen the look on those kids' faces when they saw that car," Pitbull said, "they just had no clue that it was actually something that was tangible."
The idea of NASCAR as a vehicle to get kids interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) stuck with him. SLAM is an acronym for Sports Leadership & Management and its mission is to use a sports-themed curriculum to encourage a STEM education, particularly for minority and Hispanic students.
More recently, Pitbull watched "Blink of an Eye," a 2019 documentary about Michael Waltrip's friendship with Dale Earnhardt. Last year, he was in North Carolina and met with Pam Miller, one of the producers of the documentary. He told her the story of the car visiting campus on the day he opened SLAM. They had a shared vision of educating minority communities about the sport, so she put him in contact with Marks. Last month, Pitbull officially joined the team.
The fit was perfect. Trackhouse is less than a year old, and Suarez, born in Mexico, is one of NASCAR's few Hispanic drivers and the first foreign-born driver to win one of NASCAR's major series championships.
"We want to make this sport as wide as possible," Suarez said. "We are not just talking about Mexico. We're not just talking about Latin America. We're talking about worldwide. Actually, that's Pitbull's nickname — 'Mr. Worldwide' — so why not?"
His other nickname is "Mr. 305," and Pitbull is quick to point out the coincidence that Suarez's won his 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series title at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The two have been circling each other for about a decade, too. Pitbull met Suarez at a handful of concerts through the years, he said, through their mutual friendship with Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Domit.
Pitbull was attracted to Suarez's unlikely underdog story, which he feels mirrors his own. The child of Cuban immigrants, Pitbull graduated from Miami Coral Park Senior High School, started out in the niche world of Latin hip-hop and exploded into an international pop star.
"What I love about NASCAR is it's the ultimate underdog story and I'm your ultimate underdog, and when you're an underdog you've got a chip on your shoulder," Pitbull said. "You're a fighter, you're a champion and you welcome failure, and failure becomes the mother of your success."
The collection of talent at Trackhouse is exactly what NASCAR is looking for right now: a Cuban-American owner working with a Mexican driver in a predominantly white sport.
The sport has made strides toward inclusiveness in recent years, through its Drive for Diversity program, its outlawing of Confederate flags at tracks and its rallying around Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR Cup Series' only Black driver, last year.
Eight years ago, Pitbull brought NASCAR to a small slice of his world in the '305.' Now he's thinking bigger. He's thinking worldwide.
"All of us are coming from different places, but all of us are aligned on one goal," Pitbull said. "The same way that music is a universal language, I also see NASCAR as a universal language because everybody loves a fast car and a great story."
