FORT WORTH, Tex. – Walking into the newly repaved and reconfigured Texas Motor Speedway Friday, a lot of uncertainty remained with drivers, crew chief and teams alike.
One consensus, however that was certain – competing in Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series My Bariatric Solutions 300 will be a beneift.
Nine drivers plan to do double-duty this weekend and compete in both the XFINITY and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at the 1.5-mile oval. One of those nine drivers include reigning XFINITY Series champion Daniel Suarez.
“Yeah, big time, actually,” said Suarez when asked if running the XFINITY Series race will be beneficial. “One of the biggest things that I was thinking during the week is that I was going to have those 300 miles, extra miles, to get used to the racetrack, to get used to the tire, and to learn a little bit.”
Suarez has four prior XFINITY Series starts at Texas, including a fifth-place finish last November, but the 25-year-old knows that most of his knowledge and experience goes out the window with the new surface.
Saturday’s 300-mile race, however, gives the Monterey, Mexico native an opportunity to get ahead of some of his competition for his Cup Series debut in the Lone Star state.
“I think it’s going to be very important to race the XFINITY race this weekend just to try to get one step ahead of everyone else.”
Keeping Suarez in the saddle with both XFINITY and Cup competition is a good distraction from a tough outing last weekend at Martinsville, where Suarez crashed his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing in the first practice, then struggled for the remainder of the weekend.
“Well, talking a little bit about last week, just happy to get that week over because it was a lot going on in that week and weekend and it was a lot of work and a lot of rush and a lot going on and I’m just glad that we got that behind, and now we are working on what we have to do here in Texas,” he added.
“Texas normally has been a pretty good place for me. Now with the new Texas, I am happy to get the same result.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
