Suarez feels 2018 'will be much better' than rookie season

The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was sitting where the two Rev Racing competitors hope to be one day—in a question-and-answer session as a competitor in the Monster Energy Cup Series.

Suarez was finishing up his Daytona 500 Media Day duties, but took a break to catch up with his fellow racers. The 26-year-old native of Monterrey, Mexico, remembers what it was like to race in the K&N Pro Series and dream of the day he would make it to the major leagues of stock car racing. So what advice would he offer to Garcia and Cabre?

“Well, they know already,” Suarez told Motorsport.com. “They’ve been racing almost as long as I have. They’re working hard. I feel like maybe that’s one of the hardest things to do, to be successful in the K&N Series and then to make the next step to a national series. That’s one of the toughest things to do.

“If they can do that, I feel like the rest of the way can be more smooth. But to make that transition, at least for me, that was one of the more difficult things. It’s a process. It’s not easy. The K&N Series is very competitive with a lot of big teams and a lot of great drivers.”

Once Suarez advanced to the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series in 2015, he was blessed to have the support of Toyota and sponsor Arris. His learning curve was accelerated significantly by running the entire NXS tour with JGR and 13 truck races with Kyle Busch Motorsports. He advanced to the Playoffs and finished fifth his NXS rookie season, then won the championship the following year.

The opportunity 

When Carl Edwards suddenly retired at the start of the 2017 season, Suarez got the call to Cup. His rookie season was a challenge. He had never raced a Cup car before the Daytona 500. Five races into the season, crew chief Dave Rogers came off of the road and Suarez’s NXS crew chief Scott Graves was recruited to oversee the No. 19 team. Throughout the course of the year, different engineers were brought in and pit crew changes occurred.

In 36 starts, Suarez posted just one top-five finish—third at Watkins Glen, where he led 14 laps. Still, he earned 12 top-10 finishes and was running on the lead lap in 30 events. Suarez believes that raising his comfort level will allow him to improve his performance.

“Just knowing the tracks, knowing your people, knowing your crew chief, engineers,” Suarez said. “That's something very important that you have to build on. You know, all the information that I get every week, that's something that you have to get to adapt. Knowing all that, I feel like this season is going to be much better.

“I know (teammates) Erik (Jones) well, I know Denny (Hamlin) well, and I know Kyle (Busch) very well. We know each other already. We know what we have to do. We’ve already had a few meetings and we haven’t even raced yet. We know what our plan is heading into this race. The problem with that is even if you have a plan, once you get into the race, something changes. Hopefully, we can make it through the plan and be successful.”

Learning from the veterans

Since Suarez entered the Toyota camp he has relied on the graciousness of Kyle Busch to mentor him in trucks and Xfinity. Is Busch still just a phone call away?

“I think you have to ask him that question,” Suarez said with a laugh. “Then let me know. I’m not sure. We help each other but he wants to win and I want to win. We are all very competitive. We help each other a lot but it’s always difficult to find that line. I’ll just ask until I receive that, ‘no’ answer, right?”

“I don’t know why he said, ‘Come to me,’ but he comes to me sometimes,” Busch said. “When he first started, it was every week—weekly, weekly, weekly. I was like, ‘Ok, buddy. At some point you’re going to have to get off the bottle and do it for yourself.’ Then, he kind of stopped for a little while and then little spurts he’d ask here and there, which was fine. Then he just kind of shut off. But he hasn’t come for a while.

“Still, when we have our team meetings and we talk about what our cars were doing or what was happening in the event, I think he’s learning a lot there. He’s taking a lot in. But as far as asking or prepping and getting some information about coming forward, he utilizes that more in a group setting than singling me out.”