RELATED: More on Dash 4 Cash
DARLINGTON, S.C. – Winning the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus wasn’t on the mind of Daniel Suarez during the closing laps of Saturday’s VFW Sports Clips 200 at Darlington Raceway.
That’s because the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was concerned about something a bit more important – his first NASCAR XFINITY Series win.
“No it’s not,” Suarez said following his third-place finish. “But the victory is.”
Late green-flag pit stops by the leaders cycled the No. 18 Toyota of Suarez into the lead, and with his team instructing him to save fuel, the 23-year-old nursed his advantage for as long and as far as he could –until the rocket-fast entry of teammate Denny Hamlin came roaring past with just three laps remaining on its way to the checkered flag.
Fellow teammate Kyle Busch shot around Suarez to claim second as JGR drivers swept the top three spots in the series’ 24th stop.
Third wasn’t first, but it was tops among the four eligible drivers competing for the final $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. Others vying for the award were Brian Scott (12th), Ty Dillon (15th) and Chase Elliott (24th).
“After I hit the wall, for some reason … I messed something up and I wasn’t able to hear 100 percent my spotter and my people,” Suarez said. “I was able to understand them but when we were under the green flag it was tough.
“When we had maybe 20 laps to go, when we took the lead, they were telling me to save fuel … I was saving; I wanted to save but I didn’t want to lose the lead, either. It’s always hard to be in the position when you need to save fuel and you are leading the race because I wanted to go; I wanted to lead more.
“But the problem is if I go, and for some reason we run out of fuel, that’s my fault.”
Suarez qualified for the fourth segment in this year’s Dash 4 Cash program by finishing fifth last month at Bristol, earning his first $100,000 bonus. Regan Smith (JR Motorsports) had won the season’s first two segments, at Dover and Indianapolis.
In a NASCAR.com fan pole asked to pick the Darlington Dash 4 Cash winner, Suarez received only eight percent of the vote. Scott received 40 percent of the vote, Elliott 37 percent and Dillon 15 percent.
“We were alright; it’s just once everyone started pitting as early as they did, I got a little bit scared and I knew we had a buffer,” Eric Phillips, crew chief for Suarez, said. “And in my mind, we were racing the 3 (Dillon), the 2 (Scott) and the 9 (Elliott) for that XFINITY $100,000.
“The fuel situation was probably close. But … probably not as close because we saved a lot of gas there at the end – probably too much gas.”
Hamlin pitted with 27 laps remaining in the 147-lap race, a move necessitated due to problems filling the car with fuel on a previous stop. But the flip side of the earlier-than-anticipated trip to pit road eventually played into the driver’s favor – the fresh tires enabled him to shoot through the field as others stopped to eventually reel in his teammate.
“He did a great job,” Phillips said of his driver, who made contact with the wall during practice on Friday and again on the second lap of Saturday’s race.
“The hardest thing with him is to get him to understand that’s part of this place. It’s going to happen. The best of them have done it all the time. You’ve got to go keep dealing with it, and you’re going to do it. You’re pushing as hard as we pushed, and we probably didn’t have the best car but we got a good finish and did what we needed to do today.”
It was the first trip to Darlington’s difficult 1.366-mile track for Suarez. A third-place finish and second consecutive $100,000 bonus didn’t make up for the lost opportunity, but it made it easier to digest.
“I felt like we were a top-10 car,” said Suarez. “We were running seventh, sixth maybe, not much better than that. And we finished third. So we’ll take it.”
