- Toyota driver Daniel Suarez recorded his career-best NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) finish in Saturday afternoon’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway when he crossed the finish line second behind race-winner Joey Logano.
- Fellow Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones started from the pole and drove his Camry to a fourth-place result.
DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 18 ARRIS Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
How do you feel about finishing second at Bristol?
“I just can’t believe it. I can’t explain to you in words right now what I’m feeling in Spanish or English. I can’t thank enough my team – Joe Gibbs Racing, ARRIS, Toyota and everyone who makes this possible. This is unbelievable, this feeling. We work hard and sometimes it’s hard like last weekend in Texas – we were strong and hit the wall and finished 18th. Today we were fast all day long and we ended up in the second spot so that’s great.”
How were you able to continue to improve during the race?
“That’s the most important thing to not give up and keep fighting. All day long we had a good car. We improved the car at every single stop and that’s the most important thing is to learn, to improve and to be honest my team at Joe Gibbs Racing with the ARRIS Toyota, everyone is doing an amazing job. They are having a lot of patience with me as a rookie and it’s been a good day. I’m very happy.”
What advice has Kyle Busch been giving you?
“A little bit of everything. We’ve been talking a lot since I started racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports), but since Texas I started talking a little bit more with him about the race track and what’s going on and what to do. A little bit of everything for advice from him. It’s been a huge change since Texas. Maybe Texas we didn’t have the result, but we showed we had the speed. I believe everything that we’ve been building the last few weeks is getting better and better.”
What has the adjustment to the NXS been like this season?
“It’s just the learning process. Last year I was just racing in the NASCAR Mexico Series and that is Late Models and I was racing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East so it’s a big jump and it’s a lot to learn about race tracks, about the race car, about the team. It’s been a long year so far – learning a lot and learning about the team and spending a lot of time at the shop. To be honest, in Daytona I was kind of disappointed with myself because I was pretty off from everyone else. Just keep working and everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing has been super good with me, having a lot of patience and supported me a lot in my rookie racing career. We are going to make a lot of mistakes and if we can make that amount of mistakes smaller and smaller then we’re going to be better and better. The goal for us is to try to finish races and finish in the top-10 more often and more often. We can’t think about championships, we just need to think to improve and to learn and to finish in the top-10 every weekend.”
Did you ever expect that a second place finish was possible in your first NXS race at Bristol?
“To be honest, with a top-10 I was happy. This second-place is just unbelievable. I really feel super happy for my team and I believe we are building a lot of confidence and we are building on that – learning. I just can’t explain with words what I’m feeling right now, but I’m very happy.”
Where do you feel the team is overall?
“We still have a lot of work to do, but definitely all that hard work and work at the shop checking notes and videos – Kyle Busch has been helping me a lot. I think everything that we’ve been doing since the end of 2014 is paying off slowly. I’m super happy with the performance of today. We were still a little bit off, but as a rookie I try hard and I believe we’re on the right track.”
When you moved to second-place did you think you had something for Joey Logano?
“At one point in that 40-lap run I was thinking, ‘Man, maybe I can take it.’ I just started thinking about the big picture and it looked like at one point of that run that maybe for 20 laps or after 10 laps, we were a little bit faster than him (Joey Logano). Later in the run we started getting a little too tight in the center so we killed a little of the momentum of the corner and it looked like he kept the same speed. Maybe he wasn’t super faster than us, but he was a little bit faster. Really he had a lot of experience and he was able to pass traffic a little faster and with more confidence than me and in that point he made a good gap between us.”
Has your communication with the team improved and how much did the K&N races at Bristol help you today?
“Definitely, when I moved to the United States three years ago I didn’t speak English at all so definitely every race we have been improving and improving. Right now I feel very comfortable, almost like Spanish. That’s a very cool thing that my mind is slowly thinking now in English instead of thinking in Spanish and then translating everything to English. That takes time. On the race track we don’t have that time. The K&N car is definitely different, but sometimes when you know the race track a little bit then you have a little more confidence and at least you know where the bump is and what is the line to run. It’s just more confidence to know what to expect out of the race track. My first time ever here in a race at Bristol, it was a big day and long weekend because we struggled a lot. It was something super different than what I’d raced before. To be my third time here in Bristol and my first time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, I believe that my confidence and I knew a little bit about the race track. Everything is different, the race car is different, and the line that we race in K&N is different as well. We normally race the bottom and the middle, we never ran the top. It’s been good to be racing in the K&N because it’s been teaching me a lot of things about the smaller race track and I also want to thank Kyle Busch. Even when he’s not at the race track he’s been helping me a lot the last few races with advice and a lot of details about the race track and I believe that has been helping me a lot in the last few races to improve and to know a little more about the race track because most of the race tracks that we have been to in 2015, I’ve never been before. That has been very helpful for me.”
ERIK JONES, No. 20 GameStop Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
How was the Camry in the race?
“It wasn’t bad. We had a good GameStop Camry. Had good speed this morning and I don’t know if the track tightened up or what, but it’s just so hard to pass here being single file on the top like that. Overall it’s not a bad day. We got it better and thought we were a top-three car at end, but the restarts didn’t work out our way. We’ll get it better and we’ll come back in the fall and have something a little better.”
How strong was the Camry early in the race?
“We had a great race car and we had good speed. The GameStop Camry didn’t have track position at the end of the day and it burned us when I missed a shift on the start and that was all my fault and put ourselves in a hole. It’s just so tough here. You ride around single file on the top and you can’t pass. It makes for a long day for sure when you’re trying to make some spots up. We battled hard and we made good adjustments, got the car better. We’ll work on it a little more and bring it back in the fall.”
DAVID STARR, No. 44 Zachry Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 18th
CALE CONLEY, No. 14 IAVA Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 19th
MIKE BLISS, No. 19 Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 20th
BLAKE KOCH, No. 8 LeafFilter Gutter Protection Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 22nd
ERIC MCCLURE, No. 24 Hefty Easy Grip Cups Toyota Camry, JBL Racing
Finishing Position: 26th
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 31st
JJ YELEY, No. 28 Texas 28 Spirits Stage Toyota Camry, JGL Racing
Finishing Position: 33rd
JEFF GREEN, No. 10 Toyota Camry, TriStar Motorsports
Finishing Position: 39th
