RELATED: Suarez first Mexican-born driver to win national series race
Daniel Suarez described an understated observance Saturday — “we just celebrated a little bit,” in his words — after his breakthrough victory in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Dinner at a Mexican restaurant with friends and his Joe Gibbs Racing team members that evening, followed by watching Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race to round out the weekend.
By Monday, Suarez was still soaking in the accomplishment.
“I’m still thinking about it. I’m still thinking how everything happened,” Suarez said on a NASCAR teleconference, part of his Monday media rotation. “It was a race to try to learn some good stuff I could have done a little bit better in the beginning of the race, but definitely was an amazing weekend. I think there are no words to describe what I was feeling in those moments exactly, but it was an amazing weekend.”
Suarez tracked down and passed mentor Kyle Busch, the defending Sprint Cup champion, to prevail Saturday at Michigan International Speedway, becoming the first Mexican-born winner in any of NASCAR’s three national tours. The victory was a popular one for the first-time winner, who reaffirmed the series’ slogan — “Names are Made Here” — and received well-wishing notes of congratulations from his peers through text messages and social media.
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But the impact was felt well beyond the Irish Hills region around the 2-mile track, stretching beyond state and country lines to his hometown of Monterrey, Mexico, just more than 2,000 miles away.
“From what I hear from friends, people, sponsors, they are getting crazy down there,” Suarez said. “The people are super happy and excited about what’s going on. I have received a lot of text messages and, as well, just comments, really good comments on social media about the race. They keep watching the replay of the race. They’re still getting excited — all these kind of comments.
“For me, just super-excited to have people with that amount of support all over the place. It’s just great. I’m just in such a great position right now, in Latin America and the U.S., that I really feel proud to be in this position right now.”
Suarez had come close before, both in XFINITY and the Camping World Truck Series, where he is a part-time entrant. Before his historic first, Suarez had 12 other top-five finishes in XFINITY competition and another eight top-fives without a win on the truck circuit.
Those near-misses, four pole positions and the honor of winning Sunoco Rookie of the Year last season raised expectations, projections that Suarez heard in terms of “when” and not “if” he would win a race. Accordingly, Suarez said he grew tired of the prediction talk and that he pressed in an effort to close the deal at the checkered flag.
Adopting a more relaxed approach, Suarez said, has helped immeasurably in recent weeks. Now the pressure is off in other ways, with a berth in the XFINITY Series Chase playoffs virtually sewn up.
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“I think the first one is always the most difficult to get in every series, pretty much in everything,” Suarez said. “We finally got that one. So from now on, hopefully we can keep this momentum. We can start building our confidence as a group, the whole team, and move forward.”
Saturday’s victory for the 24-year-old Suarez was bookended by other achievements in a growing NASCAR youth uprising. Rookie William Byron, 18, notched his second career truck series win Friday night in Texas; Sunday, 26-year-old Joey Logano led rookie runner-up Chase Elliott, 20, and third-place Kyle Larson, 23, to the Sprint Cup checkers at Michigan.
For Suarez, it’s part of a career arc set in motion by the NASCAR Next youth initiative, which began in 2011 when he was selected to the inaugural class. But he’s also hoping to blaze a trail not just for young drivers, but also for aspiring racers from his home country on the strength of his landmark win.
“Hopefully this can help to show more young drivers out there that they are doing good things and they are trying to follow a dream,” Suarez said. “Hopefully that can help to give them a little bit more confidence to come here to the U.S., to get the support from NASCAR. Really, I had a lot of support from NASCAR when I came here to the U.S., in the beginning of my racing career, trying to make it happen, pretty much like what we are doing right now.”