LONG POND, Pa. — Daniel Suarez had Pocono Raceway circled as a track he could gain points on the playoff cutline. In 11 previous starts at the “Tricky Triangle,” he had four top-10 finishes and a third-place result last season.
But he leaves Pocono this year scoring just one point and a last-place finish.
On the restart to begin the second stage, Tyler Reddick made contact with Joey Logano that sent the No. 22 Ford around. Trying to avoid the melee, Michael McDowell bounced off the wall into Bubba Wallace, who ran into the rear of Suarez. The No. 99 Chevrolet pounded the Turn 1 wall.
Suarez’s Trackhouse Racing team attempted to repair the No. 99 car, but there was a leak that it couldn’t stop. Travis Mack, crew chief for Suarez, called him to the garage to retire from the race 123 laps early.
“I don’t know – I got turned around on the right-rear on a very fast straightaway,” Suarez said of the restart wreck. “Just lucky we didn’t get wrecked big time, but unfortunately we couldn’t continue anymore.
“At the end of the day, it’s our fault. We shouldn’t be back there with those guys. We fought the balance of the car in the first stage and were making some adjustments to make it better.”
Suarez had a disappointing qualifying effort on Saturday, putting the No. 99 car midpack for the initial green flag in 17th. With several different strategies playing out during the first stage, the No. 99 team managed to get to 12th, missing out on valuable stage points.
During the opening 30-lap stage, Suarez felt once the No. 99 team had time to work on the car’s setup, he would have been able to charge forward.
“I felt like once we got the balance, we were going to be able to drive the front,” Suarez said. “But we didn’t get the opportunity to and got wrecked before that. It was a racing incident, but we shouldn’t be back there racing with those guys anyway.”
The damage to the cutline could have been much worse for Suarez. Michael McDowell entered Pocono on the proverbial bubble and tallied 23 points for the 400-mile race. Suarez lost a spot to AJ Allmendinger, but sits 23 markers below the cutline with five races left.
Despite missing an opportunity, Suarez still sees light at the end of the tunnel with a pair of road course races coming up before the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway. Suarez says his outlook on points doesn’t differ from what it did leading into Pocono, however, and will next focus on Richmond Raceway.
“I think we will be OK, we just have to avoid big, catastrophic races like this,” Suarez added.
In 12 starts at Richmond, Suarez has a trio of top-10 finishes, with a best showing of seventh. He enters the race with six straight finishes of 16th or worse at the three-quarter mile short track.