Did You Notice? … Daniel Suarez is about to end his ninth full-time season driving in the NASCAR Cup Series? The former replacement for Carl Edwards at Joe Gibbs Racing has driven for some of the better-performing teams in the sport: JGR, Stewart-Haas Racing and Trackhouse Racing, to name a few.
In those nine seasons, gifted those prime opportunities? Suarez has visited victory lane only twice.
Those gaps on the resume are easily part of the reason why Trackhouse announced July 1 Suarez will not return for the 2026 season and beyond.
For Trackhouse, the numbers were simple: it had four drivers available to fill only three Cup seats. Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen have both won already this season and weren’t going anywhere. Team owner Justin Marks likely believes 18-year-old Connor Zilisch, already a three-time NASCAR Xfinity Series winner, is the better option going forward.
It’s a position Suarez has been put in before. In 2019, despite a promising year with SHR, he was pushed out for another up-and-coming driver, Cole Custer, whose father helped run the organization. Custer wound up winning in Suarez’s former No. 41 car the following year, while Suarez languished at the worst team he’s driven for, the now-defunct Gaunt Brothers Racing.
From there, Trackhouse, where former co-owner Pitbull and Marks used Suarez as their foundation to build from, came calling. Long considered one of the nicest guys inside the garage, the 33-year-old has a positivity that’s infectious, the type of driver a crew wants to work for. The partnership experienced early, limited success. A Mexico native, Suarez showcases part of the sport’s growing diversity, a connection to a newer fan base it wants to keep.
But after nine years to prove himself, Suarez has shown there’s a ceiling to his talent in Cup. The 2016 Xfinity champion now has 305 career starts in the series. That’s 35 more than William Byron, 35 fewer than Chase Elliott. Those two drivers I just mentioned? They’ve combined for 34 victories already at the Cup level.
Suarez just hasn’t put up those numbers. In fact, you wonder what would have happened last year without his second career Cup victory, edging his nose in front by .003 seconds in EchoPark Speedway’s phenomenal three-wide finish last February.
Over the last four years, Suarez has run side-by-side with Chastain, given the same opportunities with the same equipment. While Chastain has the potential to be a generational talent, the numbers there just aren’t close.
Trackhouse Since 2022
| Driver | Starts | Wins | Top 5s | Top 10s | Poles |
| Ross Chastain | 126 | 6 | 34 | 57 | 2 |
| Daniel Suarez | 126 | 2 | 14 | 35 | 1 |
The differences this year have been especially stark, Chastain locking down a playoff spot with a Coca-Cola 600 victory while Suarez has just one top-five finish, sitting 29th in points. His best moment came in NXS, a rousing worst-to-first victory at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez doing a spot start for JR Motorsports.
Perhaps that’s the place Suarez should wind up in the next phase of his career. Justin Allgaier has built a great life for himself there, the reigning NXS champion another nice guy with talent who just didn’t find the perfect fit in Cup. In a twist, JRM will have at least one spot available if Zilisch gets his expected promotion.
It’s a better fit than taking the path of the driver Suarez reminds me most of: Casey Mears. One of seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson’s best friends, Mears spent time as Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports along with rides at several high-end Cup operations like Chip Ganassi Racing and Richard Childress Racing. Like Suarez, Mears was known as one of the sport’s nice guys, friendly and fun to be around.
But racecars are not driven by personality. They’re ultimately driven by skill. And Mears won just once in those rides, a quirky Coke 600 victory in 2007 with Hendrick. He never once made the postseason, eventually forced out at RCR by 2011 and into a lower-tier ride with Germain Racing. Mears found a home there but was never competitive, racing the rest of the decade in subpar equipment when he could have potentially stepped back to win races in Xfinity or the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Like it or not, those are the options Suarez will face. He’s not going to move up a tier within Cup, not at his age or with those numbers. Perhaps Front Row Motorsports winds up with a spot available? Or a new team comes along to snatch him up, similar to what happened with Trackhouse five years earlier? Otherwise, spot starts with junkyard teams might be what’s left.
In the end, Suarez’s wonderful personality will keep him on the radar screen and in the sport with someone. At the end of the day, you want to work with nice people, right?
It’s just not the skill set you need to win in a racecar.
Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off …
- An unexpected burst of first-time winners has now brought the 16-winner possibility back into play for the Cup postseason. Heading into the Chicago street course, you have to be nervous if you’re Chris Buescher, Alex Bowman or Bubba Wallace. Just four spots remain, and I can see two of them being taken up by road course ringer AJ Allmendinger (Chicago, Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen International) and drafting ace Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (Daytona International Speedway). Only Tyler Reddick seems safe based on points and past history.
- Corey Heim continues to impress after a whopping 99 of 100 laps led at Lime Rock Park in the Truck Series. Will he really have to spend another full-time season down there before getting his Cup opportunity with Toyota? That seems hard to believe, even with no rides currently available. It’s the type of track record that is going to force an opportunity to open up. The question is … with who?
Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles
The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 40+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.