Suarez on move up to Cup: "It's just a whole different level"

Suarez made his first visit to Martinsville (Va.) Speedway as a rookie in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series last weekend, a track that some series veterans still have difficulty navigating.

The visit was even more disruptive for Suarez, who had to work with a new crew chief, Scott Graves, on the Cup side when his former crew chief, veteran Dave Rogers, took an indefinite personal leave of absence.

Suarez struggled in his debut on the short track, starting 19th and finishing 32nd, and ended up 11 laps down. He was caught up in a six-car accident on Lap 290 of 500.

“I’m just happy to get that week over because it was a lot going on in that week and weekend and it was a lot of work and a lot of rush and a lot going on,” Suarez said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. “I'm just glad that we got that behind, and now we are working on what we have to do here in Texas.

“Last week there was just a lot going on. I wasn’t very excited to get to the race track to talk to (the media) to be honest. There was just a lot going on and I just wanted to get to the race track and drive the car and do what I love to do.

“It was just a lot of stuff going on, a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes, and it was just going to be something different. When you change a key part of the team, it definitely changes something.”

Importance of double duty

Suarez has had fairly good success at Texas during his Xfinity Series racing career, finishing sixth or higher in two of his four starts.

Trying to replicate that success may be difficult this weekend on the Cup side as the speedway recently underwent a repaving and reconfiguration that could prove to make previous experience on the track less helpful.

Suarez, however, is looking forward to competing in Saturday’s Xfinity race to have extra track time this weekend.

“One of the biggest things that I was thinking during the week is that I was going to have those 300 miles, extra miles, to get used to the race track, to get used to the tire, and to learn a little bit,” he said.

“I think it's going to be very important to race the Xfinity race this weekend just to try to get one step ahead of everyone else.”

Learning curve

While Suarez worked with Graves last season as the duo won the Xfinity Series championship, Suarez said Graves is going through his own learning process after the abrupt move to the Cup series.

“What I have learned in the last couple months that in the Cup stuff it's just a whole different level and it's tougher. It takes more time,” Suarez said. “It takes more work and it takes a lot more from you and Scott, you know, luckily, he has had this kind of experience in the past. This is nothing new for him, but in the last four years, five years, he hasn't done anything in the Cup stuff.

“He’s just not very used to everything that is going on in the rules and all these kind of things and he has to get used to everything. It takes time, and I have a lot of confidence that he's going to do well, and we just have to work as a team and support one to the other and to try to be competitive.”