Top series debut at Daytona caps meteoric rise for Suarez
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida — Daniel Suarez wore a suit but ditched the tie the first time he spoke at the White House. The classy, yet casual, attire seemed to fit the moment for a speech in front of about 150 Latino students not much younger than him.
Suarez was invited to talk as part of former U.S. president Barack Obama’s My Brother Keeper’s initiative, designed to help young people stay on track and think about their future.
Growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, where Suarez’s love of cars blossomed as he tagged along at his father’s autorestoration shop, the White House may as well have been as far away as the moon. He loved karting and VW Beetles and dreamt of racing stock cars at Autodromo in Mexico.
Those moments flashed for Suarez before he addressed the kids last October. He was still just a relatively unknown — at least in the United States — Xfinity Series driver, a month away from being crowned NASCAR’s El Campeon. Two months away from landing the NASCAR ride of a lifetime.
Speaking English that he taught himself from years of watching American movies and cartoons, Suarez kept his topic to one he knows best.
“All the time that I need to talk to new kids in a new generation, the only thing I try to tell them is a little bit of my story,” 25-year-old Suarez said.
Suarez is akin to, say, Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona when he returns home to Mexico.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted in Spanish to Suarez, and called him “a pride for Mexico and Latin America.” Weeks after Suarez became NASCAR’s first foreign-born champion, he was greeted in early December with a rock-star reception at a parade in Mexico City.
The high from the championship bash still hadn’t subsided weeks later when Suarez’s dinner with his family was interrupted by a call from NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs. He wanted Suarez patched in on a conference call with other Joe Gibbs Racing executives.
“Something is going on here,” Suarez said inside his motorhome. “I hope it’s something good. I have to step out from the table, start talking with him. They told me what was going on with the car.”
Suarez had steeled himself to prepare for another year racing in NASCAR’s second-tier series. Carl Edwards, winner of 28 career races, accelerated Suarez’s career path with a stunning decision to walk away from NASCAR and leave a Cup vacancy in the 2018 No. 19 Toyota Camry.
“They asked me if I was ready. I said yes,” Suarez said. “We came up with a plan and started moving forward with everything.”
Suarez will make his first career start in NASCAR’s elite racing series today at the Daytona 500.
He snared a good car, too, ready to ride with a JGR team that fell 10 laps shy of winning a championship last season. Suarez is in demand, as well, as the fresh Mexican face with the carefree attitude NASCAR is counting on to diversify its fan base and bring Latinos to the tracks and their televisions.
Suarez is all energy, answering reporters’ questions in both English and Spanish, his sentences all seeming to need an exclamation point.
Suarez, a top rookie of the year candidate groomed as NASCAR’s next big star, has embraced the Speedweeks spotlight. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I don’t feel a lot of pressure,” Suarez said. “I’ve had pressure my entire career. This is normal for me.
“I never even thought about racing in the United States. My goal was to race in Mexico,” Suarez said.
“Once I got there, I was like, now I’m with the big guys. Less than a year later I was winning races over there.
“I was the new kid that was winning everything.”