SPARTA, Kentucky – NASCAR XFINITY Series rookie Daniel Suarez’s confidence surged to a new level Friday night at Kentucky Speedway after scoring his second top-five finish of the season.
The Joe Gibbs Racing development driver duked it out with eventual race winner Brad Keselowski, Erik Jones and Kyle Busch for his second top-five finish in two nights. And while Suarez’ didn’t have the best handling car when it counted most, the Monterrey, Mexico native was far from disappointed following the Kentucky 300.
“First of all, I want to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing because they’ve been doing an amazing job with me,” said Suarez. “They don’t give up with me and my sometimes rookie mistakes and my learning process. It’s been good being with them and learning from everyone. I’m very proud as well because I was really fast. We could run all night long in the top-five, which is great.
“I’m very happy, our No. 18 ARRIS Toyota Camry was very strong. Yesterday we also had a strong run in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, so overall a pretty solid weekend.”
Suarez’s inaugural season in the No. 18 ARRIS Toyota has seen its ups and downs. From a disastrous XFINITY Series restrictor plate debut at Daytona, to a nail biting runner-up performance at
Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in April, the team’s newest protégé has plenty of speed, but has been struggling at times to find the cyclical balance of confidence and comfort from start to finish.
Friday night that wasn’t a problem and hopes that’s an issue of the past, but the freshman driver refuses to take all the credit for his success.
“I really think, I just feel different from right now to going back to the beginning of the year in February and March,” Suarez added. “I feel like a different driver, like I have been learning a lot and I have a lot of stuff that we learned on the first few months of the year. We keep learning a lot. Every single weekend I feel like we learn a lot of new things. I think it’s great.
“I really feel more confident running up front and with these guys. Not just running with them, but learning from all these guys because I really feel like we are learning from the best drivers. We have to keep it up and hopefully one race we can make it happen with a win.”
Of course, his highlight in the Kentucky 300 may not have been his first top-five effort in nine races, but the move made on his boss Busch, who owns the No. 51 ARRIS Toyota Tundra that he raced to a fourth-place finish in Thursday night’s UNOH 225 Camping World Truck Series race.
“That was fun,” Suarez chucked. “That was fun to be passing with my boss and it was good. I felt like I can be learning a lot from him and I’m really looking forward to keep learning from him and to keep passing him in the future.”
Next weekend, Suarez heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a flat 1.0-mile oval and a track where the 23-year old calls as one of his favorites.
“Actually, New Hampshire is one of my favorite race tracks,” Suarez said. “When I used to race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East that was maybe my favorite race track. We used to be very, very strong every single time. I’m really looking forward to being strong one more time next weekend.”
In five K&N Pro Series starts at “The Magic Mile”, the former Drive for Diversity driver has three top-10s including a second in 2013. Undoubtedly, the prior experience will pay dividends and should aid Suarez’s bid to become the first Hispanic driver to win in NASCAR’s national series platform.
With his sixth top-10 of the season, the former NASCAR Next driver moves to eighth in the championship standings, one point behind Brian Scott and 116 markers in the arrears to leader Chris Buescher.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
