Spire Motorsports created history in their short tenure in the NASCAR Cup Series with two of their drivers making the cut for the playoffs for the first time in their 7-year NASCAR journey. But that elation was short-lived when one of their cars started on the front row and headed quickly backward.
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While Carson Hocevar started down in 34th place after qualifying was ruled out and the grid was set according to NASCAR’s performance metrics, Daniel Suarez, by the same metric, ended up in P2 beside Tyler Reddick. But he began facing balance and braking issues, which saw him fall into the midfield within 35 laps.
Unhappy with their start to the Chase, the No. 7 Spire Chevrolet driver let his frustrations be known to the media.
“We didn’t have good speed to start the race. We went from leading the race to 18th? 20th? Something like that,” said Suarez to a group of journalists, including Steven Taranto. “That’s not acceptable. We have to be better. I’m sure we will regroup tomorrow and try to analyse what we did wrong and try to work to get better.”
Suarez finished the regular season strong with a second-place finish behind RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece in Daytona. He had also earlier won the Memorial Day Weekend race in Charlotte when rain brought the race to an early end. But his trouble-filled race in Darlington could only see the Mexican driver finish as high as 21st.
Just 16 points picked up meant that Suarez, who had qualified as the 11th-seeded driver, is now 13th, below his teammate Hocevar in 12th.
Suarez felt that he and his team missed out on something despite spending a lot of time preparing for the Darlington track on the simulator.
“I think it was around like 18th in lap 35. From leading the race to 18th in 35 laps, that’s a lot of positions,” added Suarez in the same interview. “I don’t know. Maybe we missed something in the simulator; we spent a lot of time in the simulator last week. Maybe we missed something. I don’t know. We have to regroup and try to analyze, but the speed of the car is one thing, and the execution is something different. And I believe that today we missed both a little bit. So we just have to go back, regroup, and come back stronger.”
Execution was the other aspect that Suarez saw as an issue, and a lot of it stemmed from the issues he had, which in turn prevented him from being able to stay in the lead pack of the race.
“My brake pedal, for some reason, the brakes were not great the entire day. The pedal was a little long,” said Suarez, outlining the problems he faced. “I had issues with the engine. It was stumbling. At one point, I had to go to pump number two, and it was still stumbling, but less. The last pit stop wasn’t very good. Just a lot of small things. And that’s not the way that we should be doing things in the first race of the chase. So it’s not one thing; it’s just a lot of small things that we each have to improve as a group.”
Clearly not the best foot to put forward with the business end of the season coming into play. But Suarez isn’t looking ahead at the race at Gateway just yet. For the No. 7 Spire driver, the mistakes at Darlington need to be understood and rectified first because Suarez doesn’t want these issues to be recurring ones.
Suarez also feels that the team needs to learn from its mistakes instead of simply moving on, or it risks repeating them. With nine races still to go, he believes the focus should be on executing everything as well as possible rather than worrying about the points, which he feels will take care of themselves.
Suarez understands how quickly the points flip very well. Christopher Bell was 6th in the standings entering the Chase, 50 points off Denny Hamlin in the lead. Bell won in Darlington and, thanks to a massive 73-point tally, he is now 2nd, just 12 points behind Hamlin.
Suarez is 94 points behind the leader. It’s a long shot to knock that off, but it’s definitely not impossible. So the Spire driver still has an outside chance of fighting for the title, but Spire will need to get its act together and ensure that Darlington is their Mulligan for this season’s Chase.