James Marcellana: How a Bachelor Party Track Day Became Jzilla Trackdays

James Marcellana founded Jzilla Trackdays, and it started as his bachelor party. In 2010 he rented a small track for about $1,500, invited 15 friends, and charged everyone $150 to cover the day and the food. Sixteen years later Jzilla runs track days across the Southeast, trips to Spa and the Nürburgring, and a growing fleet of rental cars for beginners.

On this episode of Throttlecast, James explains how a twice-a-year get-together became a full-time business, what a first-timer actually needs, and why some of the sponsor money goes to margaritas.

A bachelor party that kept going

A club DJ through the ’90s, James didn’t want a night out for his bachelor party. Back in 2003, some Spec Miata friends had needed extra bodies at a track rental, $150 to run all day, and he had kept at it for about a year and a half. When his best man asked what he wanted to do, James suggested renting Little Talladega.

A friend named Nick asked when the next “Jzilla day” would be. They did it again six months later, and every six months for three years. The list grew from 15 people to 45.

The name came from an earlier business. After college, James lasted about two years at an IT job before starting his own networking company, LAN Zilla. One client greeted him every visit with “Jzilla’s here.” It became his screen name on message boards, then the name of the track days.

Atlanta Motorsports Park opened at the end of 2012. In 2013 James emailed his 45 drivers asking for enough money to book it. Seventy-five showed up. The paddock was still dirt.

Built on the side, then all in

James built Jzilla while working a full-time job, and he thinks that was the right way to do it. Companies that raise money and grow too fast can fall just as fast. With a paycheck behind you, a bad event is only a stumble.

In 2018, on the first Spa trip, he met the man behind Chillout Systems, who wanted to build a better cooling system for racing suits and asked James to quit his job. James had a second kid on the way. He and his wife made the jump anyway. He spent about two years on product development, testing suits in a box held at 130 degrees, about what the inside of a race car runs.

When that contract ended in late 2021, he chose to run Jzilla full-time instead of finding another job. He had spent about six years working at an advertising school and put everything he’d learned into marketing the company. Business grew about 30% the next year, and it has kept climbing since.

What you need for your first track day

Less than you think. “My favorite car on the track is the one I’m driving,” James says. To prove the point, a pro-driver friend named Gino, who has raced at the Nürburgring and in IMSA, took a minivan around Road Atlanta in about 1:57. The video became one of Jzilla’s best performers, and people from Stellantis got in touch to say they could have gone faster.

His advice for first-timers:

• Don’t modify the car first. Bring a car that doesn’t leak, with decent tires and brake pads. Mods mask your mistakes and don’t make you a better driver.
• Keep the all-seasons. You won’t drive hard enough on day one to wear them out. After a few events you’ll know what the car needs.
• Start slow. He tracked a stock Miata for a full year, with only lowering springs, pads, and tires.
• Have fun. Lately the Jzilla crew has been running 400-treadwear tires on purpose. Less grip feels faster and is more fun.

What matters most on the first day is simple, and it isn’t lap times. He wants every driver to leave with a smile, photos, and a story to tell their friends.

From Hutchinson Island to Spa

James wanted Jzilla to do things differently. A friend who had raced Ferrari Challenge at Hutchinson Island, the circuit at the Westin in Savannah, gave him the idea to rent it. Drivers stayed at the hotel, ran the track by day, and took the water taxi to River Street at night.

Then someone showed him video of Charlotte Motor Speedway with the lights on in daylight. He called in the off-season and asked if they’d turn the lights on for his group. They said yes. It cost three times what he’d pay elsewhere, but about 120 drivers came to run from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. When he asked on Facebook where people most wanted to drive, the answer was Spa, then the Nürburgring. At the Charlotte drivers’ meeting, he announced both as the next event before he knew how to pull it off.

He spent a year planning. The first trip, in 2018, took 15 people to Belgium and included meals at three Michelin-starred or Michelin-listed restaurants. Today the demand is for the Nürburgring. That trip is run by Eugene, a Jzilla staffer who spends weeks there every year, and it sells out. This year’s group gets a full touring day, an open track day, and two hours at Spa on back-to-back days.

Rental cars for track day beginners

His Nürburgring rental partner walked James through what it costs to run a rental track car. He used those numbers to build an arrive-and-drive program aimed at beginners and novice solo drivers, not experienced ones.

His plan was three cars over three years. He’s on car number four in under 12 months. Each car takes his mechanic about two and a half to three months, with timing chains, radiators, and hoses refreshed. Sponsors supply the parts, and one can take a car to its own shows when Jzilla isn’t using it.

Every car is an automatic except one Volkswagen Beetle. Modern automatics and dual-clutch gearboxes shift faster than a manual, and you can’t blow up the transmission with a missed shift. Building a car like this on a five- or six-year-old used car runs about $25,000. Renting one for a couple thousand dollars tells you if you like the sport first.

The day Barber caught fire

Jzilla took a February weekend at Barber Motorsports Park that opened up after Thanksgiving. Midmorning, a car went off near the museum and its engine let go. James was wearing new headphones that read his staff chat aloud, and the messages kept getting worse: the fire was growing, and it was moving toward the museum. A truck loaded with fire bottles got it mostly contained.

He expected a big bill for the grass. The tower told him not to worry, because burned grass in February comes back greener by summer. At the Indy race in May, one patch near the museum was noticeably greener than the rest. There were three grass fires that day, some of them started by brake-dust embers, and a McLaren caught fire too.

Rapid fire

• Best track in America: Road Atlanta.
• Best track outside America: Spa, which he calls a bigger version of Road Atlanta.
• Scariest corner: South Bend at VIR.
• Best beginner car: a front-wheel-drive car like the one he brought, or a Miata.
• Overrated: the Cayman. Underrated: the GR86.
• The one he wishes he’d bought: a Mercedes CLK63 Black Series, when it was about $57,000.

On business, James says his best decisions came from listening to friends. “Every bad or good decision starts with, ‘Hey, you know what would be cool?’” The expensive part is the tracks themselves. One bad day of sales can take five good days to cover. Sponsor money pays for the extras: suites at Road Atlanta, an espresso machine, fruit, and a margarita budget of about $15,000 a year.

At 51, with a seven-year-old, his definition of success is being able to pick up his kids at 3:00.

Watch the full episode

The full conversation with James Marcellana is above and on YouTube. Find the Jzilla schedule at Jzilla Trackdays.

Throttlecast is recorded at The Ride Lounge, a private car club with climate-controlled car storage in Peachtree Corners and Midtown Atlanta. James knows that a good event needs a good room. If you’re planning a drivers’ meeting, club dinner, or season kickoff, host it at the lounge.