Daniel Suarez Makes NASCAR History With Xfinity Title

Daniel Suarez celebrates his first career NASCAR title

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Daniel Suarez raced his way into the history books on Saturday night, becoming the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series title after winning the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to claim the 2016 NASCAR Xfinity Series title.

The 24-year old driver from Monterrey, Mexico beat out fellow championship contender Elliott Sadler on a restart with three laps to go and drove away from the field to collect his third win of the season and his first-career stock car title. He also gave Joe Gibbs Racing their fifth Xfinity Series owner’s championship.

Ty Dillon grabbed second in the closing laps, whole Sadler finished third in the race and second in the championship standings. Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon rounded out the top five.

The other two drivers in the Championship 4 vying for the Xfinity Series title – Justin Allgaier and Erik Jones – finished sixth and ninth respectively.

Suarez, who earlier this became the first Latin American driver to win a NASCAR Xfinity race, becomes the first member of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program to win a title in one of NASCAR’s three major touring series.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] "It's very hard to put into words. I'm speechless right now," said Suarez. "I'm just very proud of everyone and thankful to have the family that I have – my mom, my dad. They gave me all the tools to be here right now. They put me in a car even when we didn't have the support or the racing background. They supported me and right now we are just living a dream. To win here in Homestead and to have a lot of fans and people from Latin America, Mexicans, all over Latin America, it's something great for me."

Suarez captured the pole for Saturday’s race and from the outset he looked to have the car to beat, leading a race-high 133 laps including 66 of the opening 79 circuits.

The four drivers who comprised the final four drivers in the inaugural Xfinity Chase field took turns leading the field and at one point were alone out front in the top four positions,

With 10 laps to go, Roy Black, Jr. spun to bring out the seventh caution flag of the day and brought the field to pit road for the their final stops.

Sadler, who had dropped back to 11^th place at the time of the caution waved, gambled on two tires and won the race off pit road with Suarez in second followed by Erik Jones, Ty Dillon and Allgaier.

The field lined up for the start with the No. 14 of Cole Whitt- who elected to stay out – restarting on the outside of Suarez.

As the green flag waved, Whitt spun his tires, trapping Erik Jones and Allgaier behind him as Sadler, Suarez and Ty Dillon all dived to the inside headed into turn one.

Moments later, Suarez powered to the high side around Sadler and made the pass for the lead as they came out of turn two, moving out to a three-car length lead.

Elliott Sadler wound up runner-up in the points standings for the third time in his career

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Sadler tried to battle on the outside as they came through turn three, but was clearly no match for Suarez’s four fresh tires and quickly lost ground, falling back 10 car-lengths as they came to the white flag. Ty Dillon finally got around Sadler to take second place on the final lap but was too far back to mount any kind of challenge on Suarez.

Sadler came up just two points shy of clinching his own first-ever NASCAR title, finishing runner-up in the points for the third time in his career.

"I should have made a better block on (Suarez)," Sadler said of the final restart. "We didn't know that 14 (Whitt) would stay out and jumble up that restart like that. I wish I'd done a better job on that restart. I guess I'll be 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' for a while. I knew Daniel (Suarez) had a better car on four tires, but I wish I could have put up a better fight.

"This is by far the hardest because I feel like this is the best team I've probably ever worked with. We all felt like we all had a chance of winning."

Erik Jones, who took home the 2016 Xfinity Series Rookie of the Year award, took issue with Whitt’s decision to stay out on older tires knowing top four championship contenders were all restarting behind him.

"I hope I get the chance to talk to (Whitt). I don't know what he was thinking," said Jones. "That was pretty down low really. It's not a lot of respect shown there. I don't know if he's never started up front in a race before. Either way it’s unfortunate. I hope I can just chat with him."

"I'd love to hear an explanation from him, from his crew chief. He was staying out there on old tires with four guys, literally almost the top four was the four championship guys racing for it. It just didn't make any sense."

Jones wound up fourth in the final points standings behind Allgaier followed by Ty Dillon. Ryan Reed, Blake Koch, Brennan Poole, Ryan Sieg and Brandon Jones made up the rest of the top ten in the standings

Suarez’s championship is sure to make him an even bigger star in his home country, where his title opportunity has been front-page news.

Daniel Suarez crosses the finish line to clinch the title

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Suarez, who made his start in the NASCAR Mexico Series in 2010 and later in the K&N Pro Series East, joined NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program in 2013 and ran a partial schedule in the Camping World Truck Series for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2014 before moving up to a full-time Xfinity Series ride for Gibbs in 2015.

Suarez scored Rookie of the Year honors in his first season in the Xfinity Series and notched his first victory earlier this year at Michigan to earn a spot in the Chase.

In the Chase, Suarez picked up a win at Dover in the opening round to advance to the Round of 8, then moved through the next two rounds of points to make it to the Championship 4.

"I feel very lucky to be in this position and to be with a team like Joe Gibbs Racing," said Suarez. "The very first time that I was going to move to the States, a lot of people told me it was going to be difficult because I was a Mexican driver, and nobody else made it happen in the past. I didn't feel like I was good enough, but NASCAR gave me a shot.

"I really feel like this moment doesn't feel very real right now, but I really feel like we came a long ways in a short period of time. Hopefully we can keep this up for whatever it's going to be in our future next year."

Race Results

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