It may not be Selfie Sunday for Daniel Suárez at Pocono, but he’s fired up. (Photo: Kathryne Porter | The Podium Finish)
As the regular season winds down, Daniel Suárez enjoys a career year in the NASCAR Cup Series.
The sixth year racer enters Sunday’s M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at Pocono (3 p.m. ET on USA) with a popular first win at Sonoma Raceway, four top fives and eight top 10 finishes after 20 races.
Certainly, the 30-year-old Monterrey, Mexico native takes pride in his roots and representing NASCAR’s diversity efforts.
“It’s very important,” Suárez said. “I’m very, very proud to be a kid from from Mexico. I grew up and I was born in Mexico. And yeah, that’s amazing. I have a different journey, coming into a sport, coming from a different country with a different culture. But yeah, it’s been a lot of fun to go through the process.”
One of the steps in Suárez’s process has been his bid to become a NASCAR Cup Series winner. After earning an emotional victory in Sonoma, California, he and crew chief Travis Mack have their sights on winning the championship.
“Well, it’s momentum. It’s consistency,” he shared. “I feel like in my mind, I feel like we’re already in the playoffs and we have to think that way, think that we are (able to) continue to get better, continue to push that limit to to be able to contend for a championship. So we have to be in that mentality to be able to continue to get better every single weekend.”
Despite 14 different winners in the first 20 races of 2022, Suárez is not concerned about the possibility of some of the lower ranked one-time race winners being eliminated from the Playoff field.
“No, I’m worried about only the No. 99 team. I don’t care about anyone else,” he remarked.
Beyond his pursuit of his first Cup championship, his immediate thoughts are on Sunday’s race at Pocono. Although “The Tricky Triangle” is a 2.5-mile superspeedway, it’s often considered a track that acts like a road course.
Naturally, Suárez, one of the series’ top road course aces, did not lose grasp of the track’s unique characteristics and its suitability with his driving prowess.
“In my mind, it’s almost like a mix of a road course and oval. I really enjoy racing here a lot.” – Daniel Suárez on racing at Pocono. (Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
“I love racing here in Pocono,” he said. “I’ve had some great success in the past and I knew we’re gonna be fast coming here. So we’re just going to continue to get better and hopefully we can we can be strong tomorrow.
“In my mind, it’s almost like a mix of a road course and oval. I really enjoy racing here a lot. Yeah, it’s been it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve felt that you already have to have a good racecars. And I felt like I certainly have that.”
On the surface, the Next Gen stock car may seem like a completely revolutionary factor for drivers like Suárez. All told, it’s still business as usual.
“Yeah, I feel like… I mean every… we have a new racecar. But everything else is the same. We have to continue to be better and and hopefully we can make another step in the right direction for Sunday,” Suárez offered. “Justin is here. He loves racing and he already want us to be very successful, so always pushing to be better.”
Similarly, like the late Dale Earnhardt, with race day looming, Suárez’s mind is mostly on the 160-lap Pocono showdown. However, he looks forward to the inaugural Chicago Street Course race on July 2, 2023.
“I haven’t even seen the course. It’s over a year away or not, for me at least. So right now, my mind is here at Pocono. I mean, it’s going to be very exciting. It’s going to be very, very, very cool to race in the city of Chicago. That is gonna be amazing. With that being said, I’m not paying too much attention to all that.”
In the end, like most race fans, Suárez offered thoughts on Marks’ driving abilities if he considered a one-off start in Chicago.
“I don’t know. I think he will certainly do very well. He’s good in that.”
Editor/Author’s Notes
Nathan Solomon contributed to this feature on-site from Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
