NASCAR News: Mexican Suarez wins in Mexico. Tix sales increase
NASCAR’s return to his home country of Mexico, even Daniel Suarez could not have imagined the amazing story of his dramatic win in Saturday’s sparsely attended The Chilango 150 — coming from last place on the grid in a backup car and charging to Victory Lane.

After victory spinouts, the 33-year-old native from Monterrey, Mexico climbed out of his No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, stood on the car’s roof, pounded his chest and pointed upward to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez grandstands — shouting to the thrilled crowd in his native Spanish and thanking his loyal fans for their support.
“It’s everything I was looking for, just a special day,” said an emotional Suarez, the 2016 Xfinity Series champion, who led a race-best 19 of the race’s 65 laps and beat Taylor Gray to the checkered flag by 0.598 seconds in a backup car the team rebuilt after he crashed in the morning qualifying session.
“It’s a very special day, very, very special to be here in front of my people, all these people that have supported me for many, many years and known me since my NASCAR Mexico days, now I’m fighting with the big boys,” said Suarez who was forced to use the “international provisional” starting position after his incident in qualifying.

And even after diligently working his way through the entire 39-car field, Suarez had to “earn” this win — by every definition. The Cup Series full-timer went door-to-door with Gray on a restart with four laps remaining, ultimately pulling away — only to have to fend off a fast-approaching Gray again on the final stretch of the very last lap.
Suarez first took the lead Saturday in a similarly dramatic fashion, prevailing on a three-wide restart with 19 laps remaining.
He emerged out front after going door-to-door with the race’s early leaders, rookie Connor Zilisch and fellow Cup Series regular Ty Gibbs. The polesitter Zilisch, who led 17 laps, wheel-hopped taking the opening corner under those crowded circumstances on the restart, spun and then hit his JRM teammate Carson Kvapil as a pile-up behind began.
Gibbs, who led 18 laps, moved forward from the initial contact and then also made contact with Kvapil’s Chevy on the next turn. The ensuing pile-up affected 13 cars in varying degrees.
Suarez drove through the melee, and you could hear the crowd’s massive cheers over the sounds of the roaring stock cars — the Mexican fans stood on their feet, arms raised, Mexican flags in the air.
Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill finished third, Kaulig Racing’s Christian Eckes was fourth and Zilisch recovered to finish fifth in another of the day’s more remarkable drives.
After that incident with 17 laps remaining, Zilisch fell back to 28th place with damage to the right side of his Chevy, only to move through the field at an amazing pace, up 14 positions in the three laps after the restart. He was in 10th place with 10 laps to go and then earned that top-five finishing position.
“I’m proud of my team for their effort,” said Zilisch, who leaned against his car alone on pit road, obviously disappointed with the outcome after such a strong afternoon.
“Obviously, the finish isn’t what we wanted. We probably had a better car than fifth place, but we got caught up in an incident on that last restart. Just proud to be able to come here and get a decent finish.
“Congrats to Daniel [Suárez], it’s awesome to see him win here in his hometown. That’s super big for him. Really proud of JR Motorsports and we’ll get it next week.
As for the incident, Zilisch conceded, “Still don’t know what I really could have done to get to the front quicker, probably could have been a little cleaner on that last restart and gotten by guys quicker … really proud to finish top-five after day like that.”
Mexico City Xfinity Race Results
Fin | Str | No. | Driver | Team | Laps Led | Laps | Status |
1 | 39 | 9 | Daniel Suarez(i) | Quaker State Chevrolet | 19 | 65 | Running |
2 | 8 | 54 | Taylor Gray # | Operation 300 Toyota | 1 | 65 | Running |
3 | 7 | 21 | Austin Hill | Bennett Transportation Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
4 | 34 | 16 | Christian Eckes # | Celsius Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
5 | 1 | 88 | Connor Zilisch # | WeatherTech Chevrolet | 17 | 65 | Running |
6 | 11 | 18 | William Sawalich # | Starkey Toyota | 0 | 65 | Running |
7 | 14 | 32 | Austin Green | 3Dimensional.com Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
8 | 18 | 27 | Jeb Burton | Bommarito Automotive Group Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
9 | 22 | 25 | Harrison Burton | AirBox Ford | 0 | 65 | Running |
10 | 5 | 8 | Sammy Smith | Pilot Chevrolet | 5 | 65 | Running |
11 | 13 | 0 | Sheldon Creed | Pit Boss Ford | 0 | 65 | Running |
12 | 26 | 26 | Dean Thompson # | Thompson Pipe Group Toyota | 0 | 65 | Running |
13 | 29 | 10 | Daniel Dye # | Race to Stop Suicide Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
14 | 2 | 19 | Ty Gibbs(i) | Monster Energy Toyota | 18 | 65 | Running |
15 | 21 | 7 | Alex Labbe | Bella Sun Luci Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
16 | 17 | 99 | Matt DiBenedetto | Sci Aps Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
17 | 27 | 5 | Kris Wright | Wright Automotive Group Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
18 | 10 | 2 | Jesse Love | Whelen Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
19 | 4 | 1 | Carson Kvapil # | Bass Pro Shops/Clarience Tech Chevrolet | 5 | 65 | Running |
20 | 32 | 11 | Josh Williams | Alloy Employer Services Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
21 | 38 | 42 | Anthony Alfredo | Dude Wipes Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
22 | 23 | 70 | Thomas Annunziata | Bayshore Mortgage Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
23 | 6 | 41 | Sam Mayer | Audibel Ford | 0 | 65 | Running |
24 | 28 | 14 | Josh Bilicki | Seguros El Rey Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
25 | 15 | 20 | Brandon Jones | Menards/Loctite Toyota | 0 | 65 | Running |
26 | 37 | 45 | Brad Perez | Sandero Provisions Co Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
27 | 24 | 31 | Blaine Perkins | WERNER Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
28 | 36 | 28 | Kyle Sieg | TRIGON COMBAT Ford | 0 | 65 | Running |
29 | 30 | 39 | Ryan Sieg | Sci Aps Ford | 0 | 65 | Running |
30 | 16 | 91 | Andres Perez De Lara(i) | Telcel Chevrolet | 0 | 65 | Running |
31 | 9 | 48 | Nick Sanchez # | Big Machine Label Group Chevrolet | 0 | 64 | Running |
32 | 25 | 71 | Ryan Ellis | Tablo TV Chevrolet | 0 | 61 | Running |
33 | 20 | 53 | Sage Karam | NFPA Toyota | 0 | 52 | Accident |
34 | 12 | 7 | Justin Allgaier | BRANDT Chevrolet | 0 | 50 | Running |
35 | 35 | 4 | Parker Retzlaff | FunkAway Beads! Chevrolet | 0 | 46 | Accident |
36 | 19 | 51 | Jeremy Clements | Allaince Driveway Solutions Chevrolet | 0 | 43 | Running |
37 | 31 | 35 | Ruben Rovelo | skarch Chevrolet | 0 | 43 | Running |
38 | 33 | 44 | Brennan Poole | Midas/Hackett Truck Sales Chevrolet | 0 | 40 | Suspension |
39 | 3 | 24 | Christopher Bell(i) | Mobil 1 Toyota | 0 | 36 | Engine |