Mexico driver Suarez hopes past success translates into Xfinity Series win

This weekend, for one of the few times this season, Daniel Suarez will be working from ahead.

That might provide the NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie with his best opportunity yet to pick up his first series victory.

Suarez, of Mexico, drives for Joe Gibbs Racing and has almost a half-dozen starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the K&N Pro Series East, including a second-place finish in 2013.

Fresh off his second top-five finish of the season, Suarez is ready to capitalize in Saturday’s Lakes Region 200.

“When I used to race in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, that was maybe my favorite race track,” Suarez said after his fourth-place finish July 10 at Kentucky Speedway. “We used to be very, very strong every single time, so I look forward to being strong one more time.”

It’s been a bumpy road for Suarez as he’s made the transition to NASCAR’s national series this season.

He won five races and had seven top-five finishes in 15 starts last season in the Toyota Mexico Series, as well as two wins in K&N Pro Series East. He debuted in the Xfinity Series with a 19th-place finish at Richmond, Va.

Along with driving full time with JGR in the Xfinity Series, Suarez is racing a partial schedule in the Truck series for Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Earlier this season he fumbled through rookie mistakes, including a crash in qualifying at Daytona, Fla., pit road miscues and difficulty on restarts.

However, Suarez has never lost confidence, and while greatly improving his use of the English language, he has also found much more consistency on the track.

In 16 Xfinity races this season, he has six top-10s to go with the two top-fives, and he is eighth in the series standings. He’s run seven Truck races and has not finished worse than ninth.

“I just feel different from right now to going back to the beginning of the year in February and March. I feel like a different driver, like I have been learning a lot,” Suarez said.

“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.”

During an early restart at Kentucky, Suarez outran and passed teammate Kyle Busch, the Xfinity Series’ all-time leader in wins.

“That was fun,” Suarez said. “That was fun to be passing 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.”

The transition from the two regional series has been a stark one, but Suarez has made great strides in a short time.

“This is pretty much my first year on big race tracks. I feel like that was the beginning of the year. Right now, I feel way more comfortable on the big race tracks,” he said.

“I’m learning a lot about [aerodynamics] and speeds. It’s been great so far. Joe Gibbs Racing has done an amazing job to help me learn.”

This story was originally published July 16, 2015 at 8:58 PM with the headline "Mexico driver Suarez hopes past success translates into Xfinity Series win."