CHARLOTTE – Daniel Suarez became the first Mexican to win a NASCAR national series race with his victory at Michigan International Speedway less than a week ago.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver goes for two straight Xfinity Series wins Sunday afternoon at Iowa Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1).
In the meantime, get to know Suarez, who sat down with USA TODAY Sports this week:
HE’S A CLEAN FREAK
Suarez spent his first several years in the USA living solo, but recently gained a roommate: Childhood friend Enrique Baca, who was named to NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program in January.
But Suarez only let Baca move in under one condition: his friend had to clean up after himself.
“I said, ‘OK, you’re my best buddy, but I can’t handle dirty dishes or stuff all over the place,” Suarez said. “I like everything clean, everything right.”
So far, Baca is being a tidy roommate (“I’m not sure if he’s like that all the time or because I told him,” Suarez said). But Suarez, 24, has been that way since he was a kid.
When Suarez was growing up, his family would go to his grandmother’s house every Saturday. But young Daniel would frequently delay the trip.
“I used to wake up and play with little cars in my room, and when my mom would say, ‘OK, it’s time (to) go see your grandmother,’ I would say, ‘OK, just let me put all my cars back in their boxes,’ ” Suarez said. “She’d say, ‘No, you can put them back when we come home.’ I’d say, ‘No, I need to put them back right now.’ I always needed to put everything back in the right place.”
Suarez still has a box that holds 100 of his old Hot Wheels cars – and not surprisingly, they’ve held up well.
“I put a piece of fabric in every single spot to avoid scratching the cars,” he said with a laugh.
FAVORITE HOBBY: CAR RESTORATION
In Mexico, Suarez and his father have a car restoration shop. But with most of his projects south of the border, Suarez has focused his hobby work in the Charlotte area on two Volkswagen Beetles.
One of the cars is a 1994 Beetle that used to be his daily ride. He drove it from Mexico to North Carolina – about 1,500 miles.
The driver has an emotional connection to his car. Recently, Suarez drove it to the track and received an offer from someone who saw the Beetle.
“I said, ‘I can’t sell this one. This is my baby!’ ” Suarez said.
And when he brought the Beetle to the shop one day, a JGR mechanic teased Suarez for changing the oil and repairing the engine.
“He told me, ‘Hey Daniel, I think you can afford to pay someone to do all this,’” Suarez said. “I said, ‘Maybe I can afford it, but I enjoy doing it. It’s not whether I can afford it or not.’ To say you fixed your car -- to me, that’s important.”
LEARNING ENGLISH IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
NASCAR is a tough sport. But Suarez said the most difficult challenge he’s had since moving to the United States – even more than racing – has been learning English.
Frustrated with his pace of picking up the language early on, Suarez turned to movies with subtitles to speed the process. He even tried watching cartoons.
“A good friend of mine told me, ‘Daniel, think of how you learned Spanish when you were little -- it was watching cartoons,’ ” Suarez said. “So I started watching cartoons in English.”
But the biggest help, he said, was practicing English on his crew members at the shop.
“I don’t think I’m horrible now,” he said. “I’m able to have communications perfectly fine. But I’m still learning words and sentences and pronunciations.
“There are some words in English where I know how to write those words, but I can’t pronounce them. People tried to teach me, but I just can’t. I don’t think I’m going to fix that.”
HE'S A FAMILY GUY
Though Suarez gets home to Monterrey every few months, his family comes to the United States less often. But when his mother and two sisters came to see him race for three weeks last year, Suarez reeled off three straight top-five finishes.
“My team is looking forward to them coming again,” Suarez joked.
Fortunately, they plan to return next month. Suarez is anxious to see them because he talks to his mother and sisters – one is in college, the other is 13 – almost every day.
Suarez also has a long-distance girlfriend in Mexico, which he said was “tough.”
“She’s hanging in there,” he said. “She’s very nice and super mature. I’ve known her for a long time. She understands exactly what I’m doing here with racing. She knows I really need my space and need a lot of time to focus on racing. She’s perfectly fine with giving me all the time I need.
“Eventually she’s going to ask to move to the U.S. But for now, I think I’m good by myself.”
Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck
