Tag: Daniel Suarez

Daniel Suárez throws water bottle at William Byron, promises on-track revenge

“Tell the [expletive] 24 that I’m going to get him back.”

Welcome to FTW’s NASCAR Feud of the Week, where we provide a detailed breakdown of the latest absurd, funny and sometimes legitimate controversies and issues within the racing world.

This weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway was fairly entertaining — even if the first few laps happened Saturday night while the race finished up Sunday afternoon because of weather.

And aside from Martin Truex Jr. becoming the first repeat winner of the season — winning his third grandfather clock in the last four races at the iconic track — perhaps the best moment of the race involved a huge, parking-lot style wreck, a car on fire and a water bottle flying through the air above the short track.

The latest feud of the week between Daniel Suárez and William Byron seems like a pretty simple and kind of a hilarious one. So let’s get right to it.

Daniel Suárez’s struggles began before the race did

All things considered, Suárez was having a decent race. Behind the wheel of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, Suárez had to start at the back of the field after his team was penalized during pre-race inspections (his crew chief was ejected for the race too). But he worked his way up from the back, and by the third and final stage of the 500-lap race, Suárez was up flirting with the top-10.

The No. 99 car was running on the outside just ahead of Byron in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet when Bryon appeared to make contact with Suárez’s bumper. That sent the No. 99 car up the track and into the wall, and Suárez lost several positions because of it.

Not long after that contact, a massive wreck unfolded out of Turn 2 on the backstretch, collecting several cars, including Suárez’s. This video shows both the contact between Byron and Suárez, as well as the huge, 12-car crash that quickly followed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCLZwj3bjM

William Byron apologizes, but Daniel Suárez promises revenge

After the contact between the No. 24 and No. 99, Byron said on his team’s radio (just before the three-minute mark in the video below):

“You can tell that 99, ‘Sorry.'”

But Byron’s spotter, Tad Boyd, responded saying he shouldn’t be sorry for that move.

Whether or not Suárez received Byron’s apology, he wasn’t happy in that moment and had a message of his own.

Suárez: “Tell the [expletive] 24 that I’m going to get him back.”

Steve Barkdoll, spotter: “10-4. We owe him one big.”

And these two teams weren’t the only ones to comment on the incident. Via RACER magazine’s Kelly Crandall:

Daniel Suárez’s car caught fire, and his day was done

Arguably triggered by Bryon bumping Suárez out of the way, Suárez was in the wrong place at the wrong time when this short-track “big one” happened, and he was unable to continue racing. Which makes sense because flames were flying out of his car.

Thankfully, Suárez was able to get out of his fiery car and was OK. But before he left the car and the track, he chucked his water bottle at Byron in the No. 24 as he passed by.

Not that the tiny amount of water would have extinguished the flames coming from his car, but it’s pretty funny that rather than vainly tossing that water on the fire, Suárez opted to throw it at Byron. (It’s not the first time a Hendrick Motorsports driver has had a beverage thrown at him at a race.)

What Daniel Suárez had to say after his race-ending wreck

After being cleared by the infield care center following the crash, Suárez blamed Byron for forcing him into being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an interview with FOX Sports, he explained what happened from his perspective in the wreck before shifting to the No. 24 team.

Suárez said:

“In that wreck, it’s nothing really I could do. I was trying to slam on the brakes to try to slow down, but it was a parking lot in there. I couldn’t do anything about it. The No. 24 car put us in that position. He pushed me out of the way. I had a few laps older tires than everyone else. …

“This weekend, overall, wasn’t great. We came from the back several times. We had a fast car, but we made bad adjustments, bad calls from the spotter a few times. It just wasn’t a clean weekend.”

Unable to continue racing, Suárez was handed a 32nd-place finish. Byron came in fourth.

And the NASCAR world will just have to wait and see if Suárez has since moved on from this incident or if he’ll follow through with some on-track revenge.

The next NASCAR Cup Series race is the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FOX).

[vertical-gallery id=1014085]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=421393221]

For Pitbull, becoming a NASCAR team owner with Daniel Suárez driving is a ‘revolution’

“Everybody loves a fast car and a great story,” Pitbull said about becoming the co-owner of a NASCAR Cup Series team.

By his own admission, Pitbull believes in the laws of attraction.

The international superstar musician — whose real name is Armando Christian Pérez — said he believes those laws led to him first hearing about driver Daniel Suárez 10 years ago and ultimately united them on a new NASCAR Cup Series team, Trackhouse Racing.

Pitbull and former race car driver Justin Marks are the co-owners of the team, which will make its NASCAR debut in the 2021 season-opening Daytona 500 with Suárez as the team’s first driver behind the wheel of the No. 99 Chevrolet. The news of Pitbull’s ownership stake in the premier series team was announced in January on his 40th birthday, and the Miami native said he’s committed to utilizing NASCAR to continue bringing people together — the same way his music and philanthropy do.

“In the same way that music is a universal language, I also see NASCAR as a universal language,” Pitbull — who will be the Grand Marshal for the Daytona 500 on February 14 — said Tuesday. “Everybody loves a fast car and a great story.”

Pitbull said he always wanted to be the owner of a team; the sport didn’t matter. But after watching the 1990 Tom Cruise flick, Days of Thunder, he was hooked on NASCAR, calling it “the ultimate underdog story” and describing himself as the ultimate underdog.

He pointed to his humble Miami upbringing as the son of Cuban immigrants before becoming a superstar entertainer with millions of fans around the globe. It’s like Suárez’s story, Pitbull said, with the now-29-year-old driver leaving Mexico to race in the U.S. and becoming the first foreign-born NASCAR champion when he won the second-tier 2016 Xfinity Series title.

Together with Marks and Trackhouse Racing, they’re again underdogs with a new team attempting to compete against the powerhouses and attract new fans to the sport.

“NASCAR has no limits,” said Suárez, who’s entering his fifth Cup Series season with his fourth team and still looking for his first win. “Already we want to make this sport as wide as possible. We are not just talking about Mexico. We’re not just talking about Latin America. We’re talking about worldwide. Actually, that’s Pitbull’s nickname, Mr. Worldwide. So why not?”

“Seven, eight years ago,” Suárez added, “I was thinking to myself: ‘OK, I’m the only Mexican, the only Latino in NASCAR, the only guy that can speak Spanish. If I don’t try to do something to bring Latinos to the racetrack, who is going to do it?’”

Both Pitbull and Suárez said they were specifically interested in Trackhouse Racing because of Marks’ commitment to promoting education in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, for Latinx communities and people of color.

But pushing education is not new to Pitbull. In 2013, he opened a public charter school in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood where he grew up. It’s called the Sports Leadership And Management, or SLAM, and according to the SLAM Foundation, there are 10 schools in Florida, plus one in Atlanta and another near Las Vegas.

Of course, both Pitbull and Suárez want to be competitive on the track and contend for wins and maybe eventually championships.

But that, combined with the greater initiative of advancing STEM education, is why they’re all on the same team going into the 2021 season. They said without Trackhouse’s bigger-picture initiative, they wouldn’t be involved.

“This is deeper than sponsorships; this is a movement,” Pitbull said.

“This is a revolution/taking a sport and creating a culture because when we first opened SLAM, we had brought a NASCAR car to SLAM the first day eight years ago,” he continued. “If you would have seen the look on those kids’ faces when they saw that car, they just had no clue that it was actually something that was tangible.”

With Pitbull’s help and international platform — including more than 52 million Facebook followers and 25.5 million Twitter followers — Suárez said they’ll be able to “make this team something different, something young, something cool, something modern.”

And that’s just what Marks hopes for too.

In trying to build a foundation for Trackhouse Racing to have a successful, long-term future, Marks said any philanthropic work has to be a priority rather than an afterthought. So, even though it’s still in the early planning stages, the organization has a responsibility to assemble a legacy that empowers future generations, he said.

“The definition of success, at least early on, will be a STEM discipline experience set up at each and every one of Armando’s schools,” Marks said.

“Having thousands and thousands of kids be able to be exposed to this and use NASCAR to say, there is so much opportunity in this world. You can be engineers, mathematicians, scientists, you can build things. And not just STEM, but design, finance, entrepreneurism, all that.”

[vertical-gallery id=960336]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=421393221]

Pitbull is now a co-owner of a new NASCAR team with Daniel Suárez behind the wheel

Pitbull is coming to NASCAR.

Throughout the last decade or so, it seemed like musician Pitbull was everywhere in sports, from Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby to the World Cup. And now, he’s getting involved in a different way beyond performing.

He’s joining NASCAR’s ownership ranks as the latest big-name celebrity to join the racing world.

In addition to Michael Jordan — who teamed up with Denny Hamlin to create 23XI Racing and put Bubba Wallace behind the wheel — Pitbull is now a co-owner of the newly formed team, Trackhouse Racing Team, the organization announced Friday on Twitter.

Trackhouse Racing is also owned by former driver Justin Marks — the founder of Trackhouse Entertainment Group, the name of Marks’ ownership group — and Daniel Suárez will be the team’s first driver when it makes its debut for the 2021 season, which begins with the Daytona 500 on February 14. Suárez will pilot the No. 99 Chevrolet.

For Suárez going into his fifth Cup Series season, Trackhouse Racing is his fourth team in four seasons. The Monterrey, Mexico native previously competed for Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing and Gaunt Brothers Racing, and he posted eight top-5 finishes and 32 top-10s.

He’s also the 2016 second-tier XFINITY Series champion.

Trackhouse Racing is currently a one-car team, and it will have a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing, which allows Trackhouse to use its people, technology and engineering. Trackhouse will also use ECR Engines, which partnered with defending championship team Hendrick Motorsports to develop one common Chevrolet engine.

The new Cup Series team has said that promoting STEM education and opportunities is a “central” commitment, which was loosely referenced in the Twitter video announcing Pitbull’s co-ownership.

More via a Trackhouse release via NASCAR.com:

Through a sizable contribution from the Marks Family Foundation, as well as support from the team’s partners, Trackhouse will design and execute an immersive STEM education initiative aimed at exposing America’s underrepresented youth to career opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Using the spectacle of NASCAR racing as a curriculum platform, Trackhouse will work with school districts, community organizations and youth groups to build the most impactful roadmap for those who are inspired to pursue STEM careers.

[jwplayer N4D2lHT3-q2aasYxh]

[vertical-gallery id=960336]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=421393221]

Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta odds, picks and best bets

Previewing Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway sports betting odds and lines, with NASCAR analysis, picks and tips.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. The green flag drops Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FOX. Below, we analyze the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 odds and betting lines, with NASCAR picks and tips with odds from BetMGM sportsbook.

Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500: What you need to know

Odds courtesy of BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Friday, June 5 at 6:05 p.m. ET.

Penske Racing’s Brad Keselowski (+800) is the defending winner of this race, and he picked up checkers last season after starting from the 19th position.

  • The past three winners of the NASCAR Cup Series race in Atlanta have been in a Ford, with the three previous winners in a Chevrolet. A Toyota hasn’t been to Victory Lane in Atlanta since the AdvoCare 500 in 2013 when Kyle Busch (+650) raced to the win.
  • Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott (+600) has drawn the pole position, as starting spots 1-12 were a random draw from charter teams in those positions in team owner points.
  • The pole sitter hasn’t won in Atlanta in 18 Cup races dating back to Kasey Kahne (now retired) when he won the Golden Corral 500 in his Dodge March 20, 2006.
  • Four of the past six winners in Atlanta have started in position No. 10 or lower in the starting grid.
  • Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick (+450) leads all active drivers with 1,197 laps led in Atlanta. The next closest competitor is Ganassi’s Kurt Busch (+1600) with 802.

Who is going to win the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500?

While a pole sitter hasn’t hoisted the trophy in Atlanta since 2006, ELLIOTT (+600) is always a good choice. He has been running very consistently since the restart of the season and has been in contention for every race since the return.

Elliott leads all active drivers with a 10.5 Average-Finish Position (AFP) in four starts in Atlanta, posting a top-5 run and three top-10 finishes. He has never ended up lower than 19th at the track.

KURT BUSCH (+1600) has three wins under his belt in Atlanta, while turning in seven top-5 showings and 14 top-10 runs in 28 career starts. Plus, he has a strong 14.9 AFP along with those 802 laps led. Father Time isn’t catching up with the veteran – he turns 42 in August – especially as far as Atlanta in concerned, as he leads all drivers with a 6.9 AFP across the past 10 starts at the track. That includes finishes of fourth, seventh, eighth and third over the past four runs.

Place legal sports betting on NASCAR action in CO, IN, NJ and WV through BetMGM. Sign up and bet at BetMGM now!

KESELOWSKI (+800) is running with a lot of confidence, and is the defending champ of this race. He also won last week at Bristol for his second victory in the past three races. And remember, Ford has been to Victory Lane in each of the past three Atlanta runs, so …

Atlanta Motor Speedway prop bets

KURT BUSCH (-125) is almost a near certainty to finish INSIDE THE TOP 10, so play that. In addition, take the elder BUSCH (-115) over Jimmie Johnson in a head-to-head, best finishing position prop.

Another strong head-to-head play is ARIC ALMIROLA (-115) over Matt DiBenedetto. Almirola hasn’t exactly lit the track afire, but DiBenedetto just has never been able to figure the place out. In four Cup starts, DiBenedetto is 29th, 28th, 31st and 26th.

Atlanta Motor Speedway long-shot bets

Ol’ wily veteran MATT KENSETH (+6000) of Ganassi Racing is worth a roll of the dice here. He has never won in 29 tries in Atlanta, but has turned in 11 top 5s, 17 top 10s and he has led 363 laps in his career. He has an 11.93 AFP, best among all active drivers with at least five starts at the venerable, bumpy track.

If you’re looking for a REAL long shot to bet on, try DANIEL SUAREZ (+50000). He has three Cup starts under his belt in Atlanta, finishing 21st in his debut in 2017, 15th in 2018 and 10th in 2019. Of course, he is now in a more inferior machine, racing for Gaunt Brothers Racing in the No. 96 Toyota rather than his previous years with JGR and one season with SHR, thus the extremely long odds. But hey, it’s worth a $1 bet.

Want action on this race? Sign up and bet at BetMGM. For more sports betting picks and tips, visit SportsbookWire.com.

Follow @JoeWilliamsVI on Twitter, and follow SportsbookWire on Twitter and Facebook.

Gannett may earn revenue from audience referrals to betting services. Newsrooms are independent of this relationship and there is no influence on news coverage.

[lawrence-newsletter]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1950]

Only 3 NASCAR drivers have spoken up about George Floyd and police brutality

So far, Bubba Wallace, Daniel Suárez and Ty Dillon are the only NASCAR drivers to talk about George Floyd on social media.

Warning: There is some NSFW language in this post.

People across the country have erupted in protest against police brutality and systemic racism in the days following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes. In addition to Minneapolis, people have been protesting in New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston and Nashville, among many other cities.

Several athletes and sports figures, including Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James, Steve Kerr, Joe Burrow and Evander Kane, have spoken out in support of the nationwide protests against racial injustices and for justice for not only Floyd but also for Breonna Taylor, who Louisville police shot and killed in her own apartment in March, and Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed while jogging in February.

Some athletes, like Celtics’ Jaylen Brown and Ohio State basketball player Seth Towns, participated in protests.

But while athletes, sports figures and organizations are taking action and speaking out against police brutality — although some responses leave much to be desired — only a select few people in the NASCAR community have commented on social media. People have also been protesting in Charlotte, where NASCAR is based.

By the time the NASCAR race at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee began Sunday afternoon, only a handful of full-time Cup Series drivers in the white male-dominated sport had commented or reacted on social media (specifically Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) this week about the protests or Floyd specifically.

There also was no mention of Floyd or the protests on NASCAR’s Twitter, Instagram or Facebook accounts Sunday afternoon.

Unsurprisingly, two of the drivers who reacted publicly are Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., the only African-American driver in the Cup Series, and Daniel Suárez, the only Mexican driver in the top-tier series.

Ty Dillon also shared a lengthy statement on his social accounts. He continued his support on his Instagram story Sunday, which included linking to a video of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking about how “a riot is the language of the unheard,” which Jemele Hill posted to Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

A post shared by Ty Dillon (@ty_dillon) on

In response to Dillon tweeting his Instagram link, NASCAR senior vice president and chief communications officer Eric Nyquist tweeted:

Ryan Blaney retweeted a video of a Michigan sheriff speaking with protesters and joining them in protesting. His teammate, Brad Keselowski, also replied to a Twitter thread arguing against rioting.

Rookie driver Tyler Reddick didn’t comment, but he retweeted Suárez’s message.

A largely homogenous industry, NASCAR is no stranger to controversy when it comes to racial issues, especially considering how common confederate flags are at races.

During the sport’s 10-week hiatus because of the COVID-19 outbreak — which is disproportionally negatively impacting people of color — Kyle Larson said the N-word on a livestream during an iRacing event. After losing sponsors, he was fired by Chip Ganassi Racing and currently does not have a ride in NASCAR.

Wallace was, again, among the few drivers who shared a reaction to Larson using a racist slur. The No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet driver condemned Larson’s language, saying he felt hurt and angry, but adding that he’s willing to give Larson a second chance.

In 2017 in response to the continued debate about NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem to peacefully protest racial injustice and police brutality, NASCAR team owners Richard Childress and Richard Petty said they’d fire anyone who kneels for the national anthem.

Petty, whose only Cup Series driver is Wallace, told USA TODAY Sports in 2017:

“Anybody that don’t stand up for that ought to be out of the country. Period.”

And Childress, the grandfather of Dillon and owner of Richard Childress Racing, said at the time if an employee protested during the anthem that he’d “get you a ride on a Greyhound bus when the national anthem is over.”

For The Win will continue monitoring NASCAR drivers’ social media accounts and will update this story if more drivers comment on the protests.

[jwplayer AqlKSGwG-q2aasYxh]

[vertical-gallery id=919144]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=421393221]