THE MODERATOR:\u00a0We are now joined by the winning driver of tonight\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and driver of the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, Daniel Su\u00e1rez.<\/p>\n
Daniel, a lot of firsts for tonight \u2014 first win with a new team, first win for Ryan as a Cup crew chief, first win for you at a mile and a half, list goes on. Now that you\u2019ve had time for the win to kind of simmer in, what\u2019s one thing that your mind first jumps to in terms of the significance of this victory tonight?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0The very first thing that came to my mind was Kyle. As we all know, this has been a difficult week and weekend for all of us \u2014 drivers, team owners, media, fans, most important, his family.<\/p>\n
A few days ago I was still hoping that somebody was going to say that it wasn\u2019t real. So the fact that Kyle helped me so much to \u2014 through the Xfinity series and eventually that led me to have a Cup opportunity, that relationship that Jeff Dickerson has \u2014 had with Kyle for many years. Spire Motorsports actually operates in KBM, Kyle Busch Motorsports, building, trade shop. This is no coincidence. The stars align.<\/p>\n
And today also, it wasn\u2019t easy. We had a loose wheel. We had a flat tire. We had everything. We had so much adversity. But I knew my car was fast. I knew it yesterday, my car was very fast, but we never really got to show it.<\/p>\n
So super proud of my team. Super proud of my pit crew. My pit crew, a couple of the guys on my team on the pit crew are new. Last week for the first time in years I spent two days training with them, an hour and a half with them just trying to get used to everything. Definitely this one means a lot because we have put so much into this.<\/p>\n
Do I think that we are the best team? Probably not, but we are definitely very strong. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a surprise to say the 7 team is strong anymore, and my goal is to continue to have winning speed with this organization and continue to battle with the big boys up front.<\/p>\n
Hopefully this momentum can carry over for the next several weeks and we continue to have fun. But again, this week, this weekend is not about us, it\u2019s about Kyle and his family, and I\u2019m super proud to be able to get it done for him.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0First and foremost, as a driver, there was a very important but a very heavy moment before the race. How and when are you able to make that pivot to the task at hand?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0It was difficult. I would say this is probably the first time or second time ever that I jump in my car and I\u2019m like \u2014 normally as a driver, you really need that time to be able to disconnect from everything that is happening to focus on the car, to focus on the race and everything. I don\u2019t feel that I had that moment today because there were so many emotions.<\/p>\n
Seeing Samantha today for the first time totally broke my heart. I saw Brexton as well. For a split second, I grabbed him and gave him a kiss on his head. There were so many emotions, so many emotions. I feel like, when I jumped in the car, I wasn\u2019t ready really to drive. Once I got my helmet on, I closed my eyes and tried to reset for 15, 20 seconds, and then I was ready.<\/p>\n
But it was very difficult. It was very emotional, very, very emotional to see Samantha, Brexton, Lennix, Kyle\u2019s dad, mom, Kurt, and the rest of my competitors, drivers. Many of us were crying. It was tough. It was tough. We lost a legend, and most importantly, we lost a friend. It\u2019s been difficult.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m so glad that Spire Motorsports and the 7 team was able to get it done for him.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0To that point, there are a lot of through lines and connections from Kyle to both you and to Spire Motorsports, especially considering that was the home of KBM. How does that \u2014 how do those connections help add to the significance of what tonight is for you personally?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0Yeah, like I said, it really means a lot. I was just having an interview, and Corey LaJoie said it best, I thought, there is no coincidence. Spire Motorsports is very, very close relationship with KBM, with Kyle Busch Motorsports, my relationship with Kyle.<\/p>\n
I mentioned it a few days ago, but back in 2015 Kyle and I, we used to be on the phone every single week because he was helping me, trying to understand what I needed to look for, trying to understand the racetrack. Back then we didn\u2019t have SMT, we didn\u2019t have data. So everything was by feel. If you had experience, you had an advantage.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t have to help me. He didn\u2019t have to help this Mexican kid that can barely speak English. He was already a legend of the sport, and he took the time every single week to help me. That for me spoke very, very highly of not who he is as a driver, but who he is as a person. Most people didn\u2019t know that side of him. I got to know that side of him.<\/p>\n
I just \u2014 those are the kinds of things I want to remember about him. Honestly, because of those things, he made me want to be like him, wanting to help others, want to go give a hand to those upcoming drivers that need a hand. He was a role model.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Recognizing and respecting what you said that tonight is about Kyle and not so much about you, I do want to ask you about how with the win you\u2019re 10th place in points. This looks like the most complete version of Daniel Su\u00e1rez and the Cup series that we\u2019ve seen yet. It\u2019s been quite the journey to get to this point. How rewarding is this win given how tough the last couple years has been and to now have a crown jewel win?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0Listen, every driver, every crew chief, every single one of you guys have had a different journey, right? Different paths. And every single one of us were unique.<\/p>\n
For me, my journey into NASCAR hasn\u2019t been easy, and I\u2019m not saying that for some other drivers it\u2019s been easy, but for me, hasn\u2019t been easy \u2014 from learning the language, from not knowing anyone.<\/p>\n
So I have had to balance a lot and learn a lot of things the hard way. Yes, Kyle helped me a lot through my career in the Xfinity series. Once I made it to Cup, we were already competitors. So the help really was different.<\/p>\n
I had to struggle. I struggled a lot just to understand what I needed to do, how I needed to do it. I never felt that I had exactly the things that sometimes you need as a young driver to continue to grow and continue to learn.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s no secret I was bouncing a lot in between teams, and at one point I thought my career was going to be over. But I never stopped believing in myself. I never stopped believing in the person and the driver that I can be. I will be forever thankful to Mr. Hendrick, to Jeff Dickerson, Chevrolet, Freeway Insurance, Coca-Cola \u2014 all these sponsors that have been with me for many years.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been amazing. I wouldn\u2019t change it for anything because right now I believe that I\u2019m the most complete driver that we all have seen.<\/p>\n
But as we all know in the Cup Series, you can be the best driver in the world, and if you don\u2019t have the rest of the pieces of the puzzle, it\u2019s not going to work. You have to have pit crew, the engineers, manufacturer, everything. I believe that right now I\u2019m in a good spot with Spire Motorsports, and I feel very blessed for that.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0To that point, one of the things that has not changed has been Frankie on the spotter\u2019s stand. He\u2019s come over with you. His work on the stand three wide with Christopher and Denny, the work he did was kind of instrumental to winning this race. What makes you and him work so well together, and why was it really important that, when you come over to Spire, that Frankie come with you?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0You want me to be very honest with you? He can understand my English (laughter). I told him, I said, Frankie, we have this deal going on, man. They didn\u2019t know if they wanted to keep Frankie at Trackhouse, which I was extremely happy to hear that because, in my opinion, Frankie is a top spotter on the roof. He\u2019s one of the best. He\u2019s extremely good.<\/p>\n
When I was able to bring him with me, I said, brother, I\u2019m just so glad that I\u2019m going to continue to work with you because you can understand my English, and it\u2019s tough. One thing is to talk to you guys here, but another whole different thing is on the radio. For me to have that consistency with Frankie on the radio is extremely important and valuable. It\u2019s the only thing I didn\u2019t have to relearn.<\/p>\n
So Frankie, as always, he\u2019s extremely good, like he did an amazing job today, telling me what was happening behind me because those guys were fast especially \u2014 I feel like, if I had four tires, I was going to be pretty good, in good shape because my car was fast too. But having a tire disadvantage, really I was going to have to play in a whole different way, and Frankie helped me to stay up front.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Without giving away any secrets, you\u2019re talking about Kyle taught you so much, but when you were in that situation and on those restarts, what was the advice that he gave you that benefited you the most? Because both of you had gone up against, had worked at Joe Gibbs Racing too, so you knew them. But what was it that was going through your mind that Kyle said? Remember what?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0To stay calm. To stay calm, to prepare your tires. At that point, we all had all tires, one cycle on tires. To stay calm and to stay under control.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of things that were happening out there on the last two restarts because the racetrack was a little bit wet the first time and a little bit more wet the second time. So I knew \u2014 I mean, a few years ago, a couple years ago, I crashed leading the race in Daytona in corner one because it was raining very hard. Actually, it wasn\u2019t only me, the whole field almost crashed there. And Austin Dillon ended up winning the race, and he made it into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
That came into my mind. But in my mind, Frankie did an amazing job keeping me focused and to stay neutral and focus on the task. I had a good push from behind from Larson, and I was able to control the race a little bit. But if the race was going 10, 15 laps longer, it was going to be tough to hold those Toyotas, especially with right-side tires only. But the team did an amazing job, we gamble, and the car was fast enough to hold them off for a handful of laps.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Two wins for Spire now. Where does this leave you as an organization? Do you feel like you\u2019re getting the respect from the other teams? And what is the ceiling, do you feel like?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0To me, that\u2019s the \u2014 I mentioned this earlier. To me, the most amazing thing about Spire Motorsports is that, yes, we\u2019re seeing results. Yes, we are being competitive. But we\u2019re not even close to the full potential of this running station. There\u2019s so much talent, so many people that work so hard, and the structure of this place, it\u2019s just very, very well put together.<\/p>\n
When you have a good foundation, the house is going to be strong. Spire Motorsports has an amazing foundation, and that\u2019s something that I saw last year from distance. I didn\u2019t know exactly what they were doing or how they were doing it. Now that I\u2019m part of the organization, I can see many things, and things are starting to make sense.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just telling you I\u2019m just extremely happy to be part of Spire Motorsports because I believe that we haven\u2019t even \u2014 we haven\u2019t seen the full potential of this organization, and I can\u2019t wait to continue this journey with Spire Motorsports.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Daniel, in Mexican culture the departed are very venerated in a way that\u2019s very distinct \u2014 I lost my train of thought.<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0You can say it in Spanish if you want (laughter).<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0When you think about having won this race and this race in particular, what it\u2019s going to mean in the history of NASCAR and what it already means, with that background, how does that allow you to celebrate Kyle as well as this one? What I meant to say is in this country, we\u2019re familiar with dia de los muertos, but there are also other things that I can\u2019t necessarily speak to completely. Can you talk a bit about that if what I\u2019m asking makes any sense?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0Where I came from in Mexico, we\u2019re very family-oriented people. My mom is back there. My sisters are back there. This is the only race I actually have my family with me. It\u2019s one of the reasons why it\u2019s my favorite weekend of the year. The Coca-Cola 600, because I always get to have my family for a week.<\/p>\n
Kyle, he wasn\u2019t my family, but he was someone that gave me a hand when I needed it most. It wasn\u2019t just a hand, it was a hand of a legend, it was a hand of somebody with so much experience. For that, I will be forever grateful, forever grateful.<\/p>\n
Kyle is one of the few drivers out there that I never had an issue with. We always got along amazing. One time he got in trouble in Cancun, and he called me, Samantha called me. After \u2014 some of you guys know what happened there. After the race in Mexico City, we partied together. He came to my party. Like I just love the guy. He was an amazing person.<\/p>\n
For me, one of my goals this weekend is for people to understand these stories of him because a lot of people didn\u2019t know who he was as a person. Many people, fans, they knew him as a racing driver. But the person, the person who is behind that fire suit, behind that helmet, that\u2019s what counts the most, that family man. Every time that you talk to Kyle about Brexton, his eyes light up. He was a family man. And because of that, this race is so special, all the combination of these things.<\/p>\n
I want to make sure that the focus and the most important thing about this victory is not Spire Motorsports, it\u2019s not Daniel Su\u00e1rez, it\u2019s Kyle Busch because he was very, very important piece for me to be here and for Spire Motorsports to be where it is right now.<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0I\u2019m very curious about something because back in October Jeff said when he signed you to that contract that this is a redemption story for both of you, for the No. 7 needing to perform better, and for you proving that Trackhouse was just an outlier. With the way you have run the overall season, putting yourselves in the points standings where you are and obviously winning the crown jewel race, I\u2019m curious, where is the redemption story? How has that progressed for you?<\/p>\n
DANIEL SU\u00c1REZ:\u00a0Back in September or something \u2014 I can\u2019t remember the month, but when I start having conversations with Jeff, with Bill, with Mr. Hendrick at one point as well, with Cesar Soriano, CEO for Freeway Insurance, we all realized that we needed to prove that we belong. I needed to do that. Spire Motorsports and the 7 team needed to do that. And we went to work, no excuses.<\/p>\n
In a way, I knew the things that went wrong the last couple years, in the last couple years in my journey at Trackhouse. I think that Trackhouse and myself, we had an amazing ride together, but the last couple years, things went cloudy, right? I knew the things that went wrong, and I mentioned those things to Jeff, and I said, Jeff, I want to make sure that these don\u2019t happen because I\u2019ve seen this movie before.<\/p>\n
Jeff was very open, and Jeff was extremely involved with the team, and we went to work. No excuses, just went to work, with something to prove \u2014 not to people, not to the media, not to the fans, to prove to myself. I mentioned this earlier, but I\u2019m not racing against anyone but myself. It\u2019s Daniel Su\u00e1rez versus Daniel Su\u00e1rez. The same thing with Spire Motorsports.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been focusing on ourselves, and eventually the results come. I believe that this year we have done a good job, but until now, at Texas we were not contending for wins yet, but we\u2019re a strong team.<\/p>\n
I said this in January, and my goal was for you guys not to be surprised when you see the 7 team in the top 10, in the top 5, contending for wins. That\u2019s still my goal today. I believe that we still have work to do, but definitely we\u2019re on the right path to do that.<\/p>\n
NASCAR PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE MODERATOR:\u00a0We are now joined by the winning driver of tonight\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-693882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}