SPEEDWAY, Ind.—Daniel Suarez raced his heart out at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
From the moment the No. 99 Trackhouse team unloaded on Saturday, Suarez was fast. He won the pole for the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard. He led the first five laps of the race on Sunday—until race winner Michael McDowell squeezed past him on Lap 6.
Suarez remained in the hunt through the first two stages. He finished second to McDowell in Stage 1 and third in Stage 2. He battled his way past Chase Elliott for second on Lap 47 before pitting with the Nos. 34 and 9 one circuit later.
That’s when the racing gods bit him. During he green-flag stop the left front tire fell on the air gun hose when the jack dropped, throwing the stop into chaos. Suarez lost six seconds and dropped to seventh in the running order with 30 laps to decide the contest—with McDowell and Elliott cycling out to first and second.
“We just needed to get to them,” Suarez said. “If I had been with them—like I had been in Stage 1 and 2, I think we would have been good to fight. Disappointed that we didn’t get to see it. Unfortunately, we were just too far away in that last stage.
“I closed that gap, but obviously it wasn’t enough. I feel this team was stronger than them but not eight seconds stronger than them. That’s just part of it.”
McDowell cycled back to the lead for the final time on Lap 53 and led the final 30 circuits. Elliott cut McDowell’s lead down to .937-seconds at the finish, but the margin between Suarez and the No. 9 Chevrolet was nearly five seconds.
“We have to continue to build, continue to work,” Suarez said. “We have some good opportunities coming up and I’m sure we’re going to get better.”
One month ago, Suarez was 15th in the point standings. He entered this weekend 18th in points, five points out of 16th—the last position in the Playoffs. With McDowell locking himself in with the win, only three spots are available with two races remaining in the regular season.
Suarez is the first driver outside of the top 16. Twenty-eight points separate him from 16th-place Bubba Wallace—the last of three drivers on the Playoff grid without a win.
“He has to win,” said Trackhouse Racing team owner Justin Marks. “He has to win now. He did everything today. He performed today at the highest level that I’ve seen him perform. We had some problems in the pit stops but his pace, his fire was exactly why we pay him to do what he does.
“And he was awesome today. It changes the landscape with the 34 winning. So, now we’ve got to go to Watkins Glen. We’ve got to try to win that race. And if we don’t, we’ve got to go to Daytona and try to win that race. It’s as simple as that now. It’s a simple thing now.”
Suarez’s only Cup win came at Sonoma Raceway last year. He has three top fives at Watkins Glen—including a fifth-place result last year.
Last year, both drivers were locked into the Playoffs in June. While Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain won his way into the postseason with a victory at Nashville Superspeedway, Suarez is still vying for a spot.
As a former NASCAR driver and current team owner, Marks has never seen this level of competition around the Playoff bubble.
“This is really a testament to this new car,” Marks said. “Everybody’s got the same stuff. It actually puts more on the people, it puts more on the performance, the execution of the driver of the strategy, the pit stops. There’s so much more pressure than there’s ever been because we’re not designing and building cars that are proprietary to our teams, where the geometry of the clips and all that stuff just make a faster race car.
“We sort of have all the same race cars and it’s set up and it’s execution. Now, it’s really a people game. So, I’m not surprised that it’s this way. It makes the sport more difficult, but it’s an opportunity for Trackhouse. I’ve said a million times before, we invest in our people and our processes. The fact that we can be new and come in and contend like we’re contending is the opportunity this car has given us.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
