EXCLUSIVE: NASCAR XFINITY Series Rookie Daniel Suárez set to learn in the fast lane

At the age of 10, one of Daniel Suárez’s friends offered him a chance to practice his go-kart. A simple practice then turned into getting his own go-kart at the age of 11. Getting some races under his belt, just having some fun and spending time with family, he started to win some races. Those races then took him to the World Championships in Spain, followed by Italy.

“The hobby just started turning more professional and more professional and a few years later, I got in a car and it became my career,” he commented.

Now at the age of 23, Suárez is set to tackle his first full season in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, driving the No. 18 Arris Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

“I’m very excited,” Suárez told OnPitRoad.com earlier this week. “A lot of excitement has been there while putting this project together. It’s been interesting, but at the same time, it’s been wait for the moment – and definitely right now we’re getting closer and closer. We’re now a little more than a month from Daytona, so I’ve been working with the team to get ready for the big race. But at the same time, I think everybody on the team can agree that we can’t wait to get to the first race at Daytona.”

Heading into the year, the goals are simple – learn as much as possible, and apply that learning into getting better with passing week to be running competitive in the top-five week-in, week-out.

“I think that the most important thing is to learn about the team, the racecar, the race tracks,” he noted.

The learning curve will be helped with having expertise around him, with veteran crew chief Eric Phillips calling the shots, and teammates Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards to lean on for advice.

“I believe that they’re the best drivers on the market,” he commented. “They can help me learn the race tracks. I can’t wait to get to the tracks to learn from them, and try to make some steps in my learning curve.”

The benefits of learning race to race have already been noticed as Suárez finished 19th in his XFINITY debut at Richmond International Speedway with Joe Gibbs Racing, before finishing 15th in his second start at Chicagoland Speedway with RAB Racing.

“Defiantly from the first race to the second race, I believed that everything I learned from the first race I put on the table for the second race, and it was way better,” he commented. “My second race was good; we were competitive, we led a lap and I believe that as we go, we’re going to get better and better. It’s just a learning process we need to go through to be competitive.”

Beyond running the full XFINITY Series schedule, Suárez is scheduled to run some races for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

“I believe the most important thing to do is to be in a racecar,” he commented. “It doesn’t matter what racecar it is, as long as it is something. So we have an opportunity with our sponsor Arris and the group of people that support me to run some truck races, as well. Definitely we didn’t think twice about it. I believe that the truck races are maybe the closest thing for the XFINITY Series right now. They run a lot of the same tracks.

“I think it’s one of the most important things now is to be in the racecar all the time when we can, and trying to learn. You can learn something in the trucks one day before in the weekend that you can put in the XFINITY Series, so that will be a good thing to have the truck series.”