There has always been a victory-drink tradition (or celebration) in Motorsports. The only difference is the choice of beverage! Formula One drivers pop a champagne after every win, while Indy 500 winners chug a bottle of milk. And NASCAR has a gauntlet of wine for the Sonoma winner. All are iconic! But our Trackhouse Racing drivers have taken it a step further. Creating their signature victory food traditions.

Chastain, being an eight-generation watermelon farmer, smashes the juicy fruit in victory lane. And Daniel Suarez, being a Mexican, has brought an already existing Mexican tradition into NASCAR. And there is nothing we love more in NASCAR than some sacrosanct traditions. But recently, Suarez revealed that he would choose the candy for the pinatas going forward. And he’s putting a special candy in there which NASCAR drivers don’t like.

Daniel Suarez is picking the candy 

As we gear up for the 2025 season, surely, Suarez is planning to smash a lot of pinatas. But this time, he’s the one picking the candy. In a recent Frontstretch interview, he said, “Yeah. We do carry a few pinatas. We are hoping we can use them as much as possible. And the candy, you know, I don’t decide the candy. But probably I should. The last couple of times I won, I haven’t been a huge fan of the candy. So I have to start putting some input into the quality of candy.”

And when Suarez was asked what candy he was picking, he said, “Very easy question… Mexican candy Tamarindos…the spicy candy. That’s the kind of candy that I love.” 

The checkered flag at the 2022 Sonoma race was Suarez’s first in the Cup Series. Sonoma has its own tradition, but rather than drinking the wine, Suarez poured it over his face. But still, the celebration was incomplete. A taco-shaped pinata full of cash and candies was waiting back at the Trackhouse headquarters. If you remember, the team co-owner and rapper Pitbull tossed the pinata at Suarez, and he knocked it with a bat. He’s the first Mexican driver to win in NASCAR, so a grand celebration was inevitable.

If you don’t know, a pinata is a container full of candy often made out of paper mache or cloth. And it’s a Mexican tradition to smash them as a celebration of success. They can be any shape, size, or form, but Daniel Suarez likes it Taco-shaped. In the last season, he smashed a similar one at the nerve-wracking Atlanta race. Remember the three-wide photo finish between him, Ryan Blaney, and Kyle Busch. 0.003 seconds was the margin between him and Blaney. 4th closest in NASCAR history! That one probably deserved two pinatas!

But Jokes apart, the #99 team should be careful if Suarez wins. It’s going to be fiery if they taste some of that. Speaking of which, Mexican candy is not liked by all, you probably need to have an acquired taste! So this could work well in Daniel Suarez’s favor.

Suarez won’t be sharing his pinatas

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In the conversation, Suarez shared an incident of NASCAR drivers trying Mexican candy. And the faces they made after it revealed they weren’t big fans of it. Suarez said, “It’s funny because, they brought some Mexican candy and they were filming it and giving it to most of the drivers, and their faces were so funny. The guy that was doing this, he showed me the film, their faces were so funny. I guarantee I was the only guy that enjoyed the candy.”

That means when that pinata breaks, Suarez is having all of it. But for it to break, he needs to win in 2025. He recently revealed how he’s prepping for the Atlanta race, “I can’t tell you all my secrets, but we’ve been working really hard with my team. With every year we have to make a small adjustment. Even though we’ve been great here the last few trips, the car is not going to be the same; we have to make some tweaks to it because we know the racetrack every single winter gets pretty cold… So it is very important to keep up with it.” And Atlanta is the first points race of the season.

So winning there would mean a lot of candy and also a lot of momentum. However, Suarez would not be making the same mistakes as 2024. He won Atlanta, but the journey from there was downhill. He ended the season in P12. And we know Suarez is good at Atlanta in the last three races. He’s not finished lower than P2. But still, he needs to target other tracks to keep that consistency going.

What do you think are Suarez’s chances to break that pinata in 2025? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!