“Almost Made Me Cry” – Hendrick Motorsports Becomes the New Example for Justin Marks as His Driver Lays the Groundwork for His Team

This weekend’s ‘Go Bowling at the Glen’ race at the Watkins Glen International was an important race in the NASCAR regular season. As William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports grabbed the win, we saw the competition edge one more step closer to the end of the regular season. With every team fighting to get all its drivers into the fray of the final 16, one team that hasn’t yet achieved the feat is Justin Marks’ Trackhouse Racing.

Driving Chevrolet Camaros for the team are Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez. In the pre-race interview leading to the Watkins Glen race, Daniel Suarez eloquently expressed the team’s aspirations and direction. In what were inspiring words from the 31-year-old, it’s likely that team owner Justin Marks discovered a reassuring sense of purpose.

Daniel Suarez’s take on Team 99’s road course troubles

Daniel’s heartfelt response came as a result of a question from NBC Sports’ Dustin Long. Dustin mentioned Trackhouse Racing’s recent failures in road courses and asked, “You know for somebody who talks about you know, ‘Look out for the 99 team at the road course’, is it… How do you look back at what’s happened and how many points have been left on the table? Or do you just put all that stuff away?

Answering the rather harshly put query, Daniel joked, “You almost made me cry” and continued to speak about what actually caused the failures in the races that Dustin had asked about. While he did attribute the issues to mechanical and technical problems, he was clear about having to be smarter and better as a team going forward.

The driver’s struggle with the losses shone through his answer as he said, ” I mean, I think that the only road course this year that we have in being capable of winning the race is actually Sonoma and we know why. We know what went wrong. There was something significantly wrong besides the shifting (…) I feel like in Chicago we just did above good enough. We took for granted how much how much heat the brakes were gonna take and then I run out the brakes in the rear of my car.”

Read More: Team Trackhouse Left It All on Daniel Suarez’s Shoulders After Massive Pit Blunder

The races that formed the basis for the entire exchange were the ones at the Sonoma Raceway and the Chicago Street Course. Daniel Suarez had finished outside the top 20 in both the races and is now in the brink of entering the playoff season’s final 16.

The conviction to evolve his team to the level of Hendrick Motorsports

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Talking about the problems that his car faced in the road course races, Daniel acknowledged gracefully that even with those faults he could have done better, but couldn’t do so because of his own flaws. Citing the Chicago race, he spoke about how he kept pushing the car even though the brakes couldn’t take it and ended up finishing in the mid-20s.

“I feel like we’re a fast team, but we have to be smarter. You know, if we want to win a championship and if we want to be upfront in a consistent basis, we have to be smarter and I say ‘we’ because, including myself too, you know”, he said.

One team that Daniel has set his eyes on to replicate is Hendrick Motorsports. Talking about how he wanted his team to be smarter and make better decisions, he said that he wanted to win several races like Hendrick Motorsports was doing. He said, ” The 24 team is not thinking about getting into the playoffs. They’re thinking about how to win a championship. You know they have several wins. They are thinking about playoff points. That’s what I want for the 99 team and that’s my target and we’re working very hard for that.”

With team owner Justin Marks revolutionizing the sport with initiatives like Project91, he would certainly love where his driver’s heart is right now. Daniel Suarez currently sits at the brink of the playoffs cut-off line while teammate Ross Chastain has already qualified, thanks to the victory at Nashville. Whether a collective effort from Trackhouse Racing will take the team to unseen heights remains to be seen.

Watch Story: Daniel Suarez Remains Silent Despite Trackhouse Owner Justin Marks Reneging on His SVG Promise