By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
Daniel Suarez was able to score his best finish of 2018 during the AAA 400 at Dover International Raceway with a third-place finish on the concrete oval.
With a rough start to 2018, the sophomore driver believes that the team is finally moving in the right direction with the performance he showed today.
“It was good. We had a little rough start in the first few weeks – month, month and a half – and now definitely we are moving in the right direction, so I’m just very proud of this team, everyone that makes this possible. This is pretty cool to finally get moving in the right direction,” Suarez said.
Suarez believes that the race at Dover was his best of run of his Cup career. Suarez knew that the No. 19 team brought a very strong car through the entire weekend.
With track position crucial throughout the race, Suarez needed the help of his pit crew on pit road and the execution of restarts. By race end’s, Suarez believed that he at the a third-place car at best.
“I feel like right there at the end we were maybe a third-place car. Track position helped us a lot. My pit crew actually did an amazing job right there picking up – I don’t know, four, five spots or something like that. They did it right when it counts, so very proud of those guys and excited to keep moving forward,” Suarez said.
As a driver in his sophomore year, Suarez sees the improvement. With the input from his teammates, Suarez is learning something new each week, something he is excited about going forward.
Suarez sits 17th in the points standings, only 232 points behind the leader, Kyle Busch.