Two days ago, Daniel Suarez was a late model rookie.
The Mexico native has been honed in on NASCAR since beginning his career as a race car driver in the U.S., and piloting a late model was simply never part of the equation.
Now as a full-time Cup Series driver for Trackhouse Racing, with a Xfinity Series title and single premier class win to support his rise through the ranks of stock car racing, Suarez has had no reason to look elsewhere for seat time.
North Wilkesboro Speedway is the exception.
With an ASA STARS National Tour super late model feature and CARS Tour late model stock car race scheduled as lead-ins to Sunday’s NASCAR All-Star Race at the five-eighths-mile track, the 500-plus horsepower cars were gleaming with new potential.
As the Cup Series hasn’t visited the facility since 1996, very few drivers will have a clear idea of what to expect from the 42-year-old asphalt during Sunday’s $1 million-to-win race.
So, with the interest of making extra laps at the track and potentially gaining a competitive advantage over his NASCAR rivals, Suarez signed up for both late model features.
“My background is not short tracks. I raced my first oval when I was 17 years old. So, for me to come into short tracks here in the U.S. with the competition that we’re seeing here is a huge opportunity,” Suarez commented. “On top of that, I’m getting ready for an important race in the Cup Series. It’s a win-win for everything.”
Though not his acclaimed area of expertise, the 31-year-old seemed to unlock a new talent during his late model venture.
He started on the pole for the ASA STARS race based on his combined time from the two practice sessions as qualifying was rained out. He qualified sixth for the CARS Tour late model stock race.
As weather hindered the original race schedule, Suarez was pressed to compete back-to-back in the two features on Wednesday night.
He finished fifth in ASA’s ECMD 150 and 15th in the CARS Tour’s Window World 125 after being caught up in a multi-car wreck.
While the late model experience was a breath of fresh air for Suarez, his most valuable takeaways from 275 laps of racing are related to the next box he hopes to check off his list — winning the All-Star Race.
“The late models are quite softer than the Cup cars, and you can feel the bumps quite a bit. So, I think with the Cup cars, we’re going to feel every imperfection on the race track,” Suarez said. “We’ll have to be smart, not just fast, which is something that we don’t do every weekend.”
He anticipates the heavy Next Gen cars will be a handful once drivers hit the 30-to-40-lap mark of the 200-lap race. Tire management strategy will also play a prominent role — well beyond the normal level, Suarez says.
“We don’t do much tire management any more, because track position and aero overcomes tire management. We can go to any race track that you want, probably except this one, and track position is going to be more important than tires,” Suarez explained. “If you’re up front, you can likely keep the lead just by having clean air.”
Managing the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro will be a difficult task for every Cup Series driver, as there are many unknowns when it comes to how the Next Gen car will handle.
Despite the additional track time, Suarez and the several other NASCAR stars who got their feet wet by participating in one of the mid-week late model races will still be somewhat in the dark on Sunday.
“We may look like heroes or we may look like zeros,” Suarez said. “We don’t know.”