CONCORD, N.C. – Daniel Suarez was, perhaps, six inches away from clearing Kevin Harvick off turn two on the final restart of Saturday night’s Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race.
However, he couldn’t find the last gasp of momentum needed to clear Harvick for a million dollar payday.
Suarez, who raced his way into the All-Star Race by winning the second stage of the Monster Energy Open earlier in the night, charged through the field from the 19th starting position to crack the top 10 by the end of the opening 30-lap segment and then methodically continued his march forward.
In part by sheer speed and in part by staying out of the chaos when a multi-car accident broke loose at the front of the field just before the end of the third segment, Suarez ultimately found himself alongside Harvick on the front row to begin the 10-lap dash for cash at the end of the race.
Though Harvick was pushed clear to the lead by fellow Ford driver Ryan Blaney, Suarez ended up slotting into second and never lost touch with Harvick’s bumper coming down the stretch.
After a late collision between Joey Logano and Kyle Larson set up a two-lap run to the checkered flag, Suarez found himself with teammate Denny Hamlin pushing him on the final restart, while Harvick lined up with Logano in his back pocket when the green flag waved.
Though Hamlin shoved Suarez all the way up alongside and nearly past Harvick by the center of turn two, Suarez didn’t have enough steam to pull up in front of Harvick cleanly and was helpless as Logano stayed locked to Harvick’s back bumper.
That push allowed Harvick to clear Suarez down the backstretch, with the 2014 Cup Series champion pulling away to his second All-Star Race win and relegating Suarez to the bridesmaid position, .325 of a second back at the checkered flag.
After climbing from his car, Suarez said he did all he could on the final restart, but felt he had a car “capable of winning the race.”
“We were very strong and very competitive, but for whatever reason on restarts, my car was taking a lap to go and those guys … when the two Fords were connected, they were pretty strong,” noted Suarez. “I just needed a little bit more right there. The 11 (Hamlin) got disconnected from me a little bit, and I tried to side draft the 4 (Harvick), but it was very tough. After he cleared me, it was pretty much game over because I started racing the 22 (Joey Logano) instead of the 4. I’m proud of my guys, though. We’ve raced in the All-Star (Race) twice already, so that’s not bad. It just hurts to be close and not to get it.”
Suarez noted that while he had 40 extra laps of track time to feel out both his car and the track during the Open, he couldn’t glean too much from that to use towards the All-Star Race because of how much the track changed as the sun went down.
“I feel like in the Open, the race track was on that transition from being hot or warm to cooling down,” explained Suarez. “What I learned is that the top came in actually faster and quicker than what I was expecting, but I know the rest of these guys were watching and learning as I was on the race track. I don’t feel like I had any advantage. I was able to adjust my car a little bit from what I learned, but other than that, I feel like we were (all) in the same boat.”
Suarez emphasized that handling was king, and that he felt he was so strong because his Toyota stayed consistently strong as the night wore on.
“My car was handling very, very well all night,” said Suarez. “I had a good handling car that was able to race up front without dragging a lot of speed. I feel like when you have a car like that, you can run top five all day and we did that.
“Coming to this race … was a lot of unknowns and we had a lot of things to figure out, and I said to my team yesterday that whoever did the best job finding those things out as a driver and as a team was going to be able to win tonight. I really feel like we did everything that we could. If I had to do it again, I’m not sure what I would do different. I feel like different circumstances could have given us the victory, but it didn’t quite work out.”
In the closing stints of the race, Suarez put it all on the line in his attempt to take home the sport’s richest prize.
“Let me tell you, the second half of the race, I was racing as hard as I could,” noted Suarez. “If I was wrecking, I was wrecking. If I was winning, I was winning. I didn’t care about anything else but driving as hard as I could. Normally in a points race, you drive differently and throw everything you have at the last part of the race, but here I threw everything I had at it earlier and it worked out well.
“We just needed a little bit more,” Suarez repeated. “I’m not sure where. We just needed a bit more.”
