Daniel Suárez Hunting for Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway

Credit: Debbie Ross/Skirts and Scuffs

Xfinity Series points leader Daniel Suárez considers Texas Motor Speedway to be almost his home track, since its proximity to Mexico makes it a convenient track to visit for fans from Mexico.

“It’s a tough race track,” Suárez said. “I won’t say that it’s been the best race track for us so far, but it’s one of those race tracks that we’re looking forward to it. This is almost like my home race track. A lot of friends and family from Mexico came to this race and it’s a lot of fun.”

Despite his view otherwise, the Great American Speedway hasn’t been too bad for the 24-year-old native of Monterrey. He’s competed in both the Xfinity Series and the Camping World Truck Series, notching an average finish of 12th, including one top 10 in Xfinity and a pair of seconds in the Trucks.

“In the trucks, we’ve been a little successful here as well. It’s a good race track for us," Suarez said. “In the races that we’ve had here, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot from those for the second time and we finished in the sixth position last November.”

Suárez believes he may get the No. 19 Juniper Networks Camry into victory lane soon.

“A couple weeks ago it was just a little bit of fuel. It’s just a question of time.We just need to keep working. The team is on par, the team is doing an amazing job. We have fast race cars, and that’s always the most important thing. I feel like I’m doing my part pretty decent, too.”

Decent is an understatement. In the first five races of the season, Suárez has finished in the top 10 every race, with three of those in the top five. His average finish is 4.8. Granted, it’s only five races into the season, but racing is a sport of parts and pieces and Suárez believes his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team has everything it needs to win.

“The team is doing its part, I’m doing my part. We’re on the same channel, we’re moving forward together and I think we just need to put all the pieces together to make it happen. Right now I feel like we have all the pieces, we just need to put them together and make it happen in one of these races," Suárez explained. “We have been in the top five pretty much every race. When you’re doing that, pretty much sooner or later it’s going to happen. We just need keep doing what we are doing, and that’s it.”

Considering that he ran fourth and fifth in Thursday’s practices, it’s not too much of a stretch that the pieces could come together Friday night under the lights in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. Tune in to Fox Sports 1 at 7:30 p.m. Central Time to find out.