A once-in-a-lifetime finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February saw Daniel Suárez triumph by a mere 0.003 seconds, earning the Trackhouse Racing driver his first playoff appearance in two years.
Ironically, the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs open this weekend at Atlanta. Suárez continues to feel the ramifications of his photo-finish victory over Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.
“It’s special. Today we saw it in the morning, and I have seen it several times,” Suarez said on Wednesday. “People have been talking about it. It was a great finish and it’s something that people are going to be talking about for a very long time and it’s in the history books.
“I’m just happy that I’m the one who won it because if I was Blaney or Busch I would feel very bad about it.”
Since the spring race at Atlanta, the 32-year-old has experienced his share of ups and downs. Regular season champion Tyler Reddick led the series with 18 top-10 finishes in the first 26 races.
Suárez, on the other hand, has only six top 10s.
Don’t be fooled by the numbers, however. Sixteen drivers qualified for the 10-race playoffs, but it only takes a single victory to advance from one round to the next.
Suárez begins the playoffs 11th in the standings, one point above the cutline.
Suarez knows he and Trackhouse Racing are considered underdogs entering the playoffs, but he remembers 2022 when he and teammate Ross Chastain represented the team in the playoffs.
Chastain advanced to the Championship 4, while Suárez finished 10th in the standings.
“2022, Trackhouse was actually one of the best teams,” Suárez said. “This year hasn’t been the same. This year we’ve been working extremely hard, but the results have been slower than what we thought they were going to be.
“I wouldn’t consider myself one of the favorites for the championship right now, but is that going to change my mentality of who am I as a race car driver and the potential of the 99 and Trackhouse in the playoffs? Of course not. I know how good we are on road courses; how good we were at Atlanta. I know how good we can be at some of these race tracks and the first two rounds are very critical.
“I believe if we have good execution days in the first couple of rounds we can get to the Round of 8,” Suárez continued. “And once you are there you have to be perfect. Anything can happen. We’ve seen it time and time again.
“We just have to continue to push hard, give it everything we got for the next 10 weeks and see where we stand.”