TOYOTA NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Daniel Suarez – Notes & Quotes
Iowa Speedway – June 17, 2016
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Daniel Suarez was made available to the media at Iowa Speedway:
DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 19 ARRIS Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What has your week been like after your win?
“Thank you for everyone to be here. Definitely it’s been a busy, but very fun week. It’s been just really cool to keep remembering all these good memories from the weekend – videos, pictures, comments, radio, communication – it’s really cool. At the same time, to have all these interviews and to see all our people excited for what happened last weekend in Michigan is really cool, but now we are ready to do it again.”
What are your expectations at Iowa Speedway since you’re familiar with the track?
“Iowa is a place that I really like a lot. It’s a place that I feel like – it’s one of those places where I have the most experience of all the race tracks for the national series because I used to race here in my K&N days, so I really like this place a lot. I feel like it’s been a good place for me since I was racing in the K&N stuff, so really looking forward to having a better finish. I feel like we have had a lot of speed in the last year in both attempts in XFINITY Series, but we didn’t have exactly the result that we were looking for, so hopefully we can do a little bit better and hopefully we can maintain our momentum from last week.”
Has your mindset changed to thinking about the Chase after your win?
“I don’t think so. I think points wise we were in a pretty good shape before the win, so we’ve been thinking step-by-step and race-by-race. The championship I think is going to care by itself if we take care of every race one-by-one. Always it’s important to know that for sure we are going to be battling in the championship, but for now our main focus is try to be strong and to have another good run here in Iowa. Last weekend in Michigan, it really was a really good run and there result was amazing, but I made some mistakes and we had some mistakes as a team. We had a very fast race car and we were able to overcome, but we made some mistakes, so hopefully we can fix those and be – to make a little bit better race here in Iowa at least for ourselves, a little more clean with our mistakes and hopefully we can have the same result at the end.”
What has been like to see the feedback from Mexico this week?
“That has been huge. It’s been really cool to receive a lot of calls, a lot of interviews, a lot of good comments from Mexico really a lot – from all of Latin America. I was talking that I had some calls from – we had some calls from Argentina, Brazil, people all over Latin America that don’t really watch the sport very, very close and people that was really excited amount what happened last weekend in Michigan. I think it was something really cool. Honestly, I’ve been excited every single day of this week, but I think it’s time to start thinking about Iowa and to start to put that in the past. It was something really cool that I really enjoyed a lot and I think it’s time to move to Iowa and try to feel that feeling again, but at a different race track.”
Did you expect your first win to come in the XFINITY or Truck Series and are you close to winning in a Tundra?
“I think we are very close. The 51 team is doing a really good job. I feel like we’ve started a little bit behind in the beginning of the year – new team, new people – but we’re putting all the pieces together. I feel like in the last couple races, we have had a lot of speed – not right out of the box, but very good speed in the race which is the most important thing at the end of the day. I kind of knew that the victory was going to come in either series because in both series we’ve been strong, but definitely it was super cool to get it in the XFINITY Series because we all know that it’s our main focus in the XFINITY Series and really the way that victory came together.”
Who are the most memorable people that have reached out to you this week?
“Well, a lot of friends. Really like I said, a lot of media, a lot friends from Mexico. I think that has been the biggest thing – a lot of people that have been following me – my racing career – since I was racing in Mexico when I was 17 when I was starting in automobile stock car racing and ovals – 17, 18 years old – so definitely it’s been cool to talk to a lot of people that support me a lot to start this dream, so it’s been cool and like I said hopefully we can do it again.”
