(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden
There was a time not long ago when Daniel Suarez’s NASCAR Cup Series career appeared to be winding down. He was meddling in the back half of the field, seemingly poised to be another cautionary tale of moving up too quickly to the sport’s grandest stage.
His descent was deep. But it made Sunday’s rise all the sweeter.
“You know, it has cost me a lot to get to this point,” Suarez said after his first Cup win at Sonoma Raceway. “A lot of people (don’t) know that, but it cost me a lot to get to this country first 10 years ago, and to get to this point, fighting. I come from a very humble family. Every step of my life has cost me a lot.”
Suarez’s entire Cup journey has been a challenge. His first arrival at Joe Gibbs Racing was a shock, coming after Carl Edwards’ unexpected retirement just before the start of the 2017 season. The Mexican star’s rise came after a surprising 2016 Xfinity Series title run, but he was given only two years with brief glimpses of promise to sink or swim before being unceremoniously ousted from the organization.
Suarez managed to land a ride with Stewart-Haas Racing for the following season and seemed to find his footing, occasionally contending and vowing to make the playoffs in the summer months. But he missed the postseason in heartbreaking fashion, losing out on the last available spot to Ryan Newman on a tiebreaker after a difficult regular season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Ten weeks later he was out of a ride again, told on the Friday of the season-ending race weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway that he was being replaced by promising Xfinity Series prospect Cole Custer.
That left Suarez scrambling to find anything for 2020. He was given a lifeline of sorts in a ride with the unproven Gaunt Brothers Racing team, but the program was a small, underfunded effort that had never ran a full season before.
The group started the year by failing to qualify for the Daytona 500. It didn’t get much better for there, either, with Suarez finishing no better than 18th in what proved to be a slog of a year. His only real chance to be competitive came during the briefly-lived sim racing era when real-life sports came to a standstill at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He could have been forgiven for giving up at that point. Lord knows some people gave up on him. But Suarez kept marching forward, just hoping that another opportunity would arise.
One did thanks to co-owner Justin Marks, crew chief Travis Mack and Trackhouse Racing. The newly-formed operation offered up its lone entry to Suarez entering the 2021 season.
Was Suarez taking the No. 99 Chevrolet a risk? Absolutely, for both sides. The new organization was unproven, just as Gaunt had been. Suarez had shown glimpses of talent, but hadn’t exactly lit the world on fire in his first four years.
None of that was enough to outweigh the positives of the situation for either side, though.
Marks believed in Suarez. He saw the champion and winner from the lower levels, now with experience and an urge to prove himself at NASCAR’s top flight.
Suarez knew he might have to be patient as Trackhouse got up to speed. But the organization seemed determined to build in the right way and they were fully committed to Suarez.
“I told him from day one, ‘This is your team, this 99 team is your team,” Marks said of his early talks with Suarez. “You come to me and tell me anything and everything that you need. We’re going to put that behind you.”
The group’s first season was a quiet one, highlighted by a strong run in the first Bristol Dirt Race. Trackhouse had immediate pace to kick off 2022, but it was arriving second driver Ross Chastain that first took advantage of it. The Floridian seemingly meshed perfectly with the Next Gen Car and outshined Suarez, quickly winning a pair of races.
That spurred on doubters, but Suarez kept showing potential. He’d led the first 15 laps at Circuit of the Americas in the race Chastain won first before being caught out by strategy. Suarez nearly stole a win at the Bristol Dirt Race, was in contention at Talladega Superspeedway and seemingly had the best car in the Coca-Cola 600, though his team kept losing track position on pit road.
Failing to pick up a win with so much consistent pace was discouraging, especially when his teammate Chastain found victory lane twice over the spring. But Suarez could see that his own opportunities were coming.
“I knew that it’s important to remember that if I was able to come all the way here, I wasn’t going to give up here,” he said. “My confidence was high. But obviously knowing that you haven’t won yet, there is a little bit of doubt.
“But I knew that I was fast. I knew that I could race with them, with the guys that are winning. But I haven’t showed that first victory.”
Everything finally came together on Sunday. Suarez was fast. His crew made no mistakes. They also got the right side of racing luck, with Hendrick Motorsports stars Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott both falling out of contention due to pit road miscues.
Suarez took the lead from Chris Buescher on a restart at the beginning of Stage 3. He held it through a clean green-flag pit cycle, survived another restart with 24 to go and kept Buescher at bay over the lengthy run to the checkered flag.
The tension was obvious, leading the typically chatty No. 99 radio to lay quiet as the laps ticked down. There was also a scare when AJ Allmendinger went off-course on the penultimate lap.
But the caution flag never flew and Suarez never faltered. He took in a major first win at Sonoma.
For himself. His team. His family. His girlfriend, Julia Piquet.
The most deserving 🙏🏼❤️ @Daniel_SuarezG pic.twitter.com/Y54oCjv3iM
— Julia Yasmeen Piquet (@JuliaPiquet) June 13, 2022
For Mexico. For “Daniel’s Amigos,” his passionate fans.
For all of the people that never gave up on a talented young star that refused to give up on himself.
“I told them that bad luck doesn’t last forever, and tough people do,” Suarez said. “We keep working very hard and here we are.”
