Daniel Suarez began thirty fifth at Bristol and made little progress as he battled with a disabled #99 Chevrolet. He fell behind the front early on and spent a lot of the race outside the highest 30. He was 4 laps down when the checkered flag got here, but still had something to smile about as he advanced to Round 12 with a 12-point lead.
“It was a struggle,” said Suarez. “Since yesterday, when we unloaded the car for the first practice session, we just didn’t have the speed. As you know, with the short period of practice, qualifying and the race, if you don’t have the speed on the trailer, it’s very, very difficult to get it back. We improved, but it wasn’t good enough. We were running 30th, 28th, 32nd all night long, and that was what we had.”
How did he manage to advance after such a dismal performance? Well, he relied heavily on the 36-point lead he had built up before Bristol with a second-place finish in Atlanta and an honest showing at Watkins Glen. But more importantly, Martin Truex Jr.’s bad luck made things easier for him once more within the closing laps as he managed to maintain Ty Gibbs at bay.
Stopping Gibbs
“You know, I can only control so much,” Suarez continued. “I can only control what the 99 automotive can do, and every thing else is out of my control. At one point, I felt bad concerning the 54 automotive [Gibbs] because I needed to hold him back a bit bit and he got passed, but I needed to do it. I wasn't fast enough to get away from him, so I needed to play games to have the option to influence him as much as possible in a clean way.”
The strategy worked as Gibbs closed to inside 4 points of Suarez before burning out his tyres in a futile try and pass him. Gibbs lost several positions in the ultimate laps and dropped to fifteenth in the ultimate starting order.
Suarez can breathe a sigh of relief, but just for a moment. With the points resetting once more in Round 12, he’s now within the elimination zone at the beginning of the following three-race stretch, six points behind. Luckily for him, the opening rounds are a mirror image with one other draft track (Talladega) and a road course (Charlotte Rova). Both of Suarez’s Cup wins got here at such tracks — Atlanta and Sonoma.
