MEXICO CITY — Ahead of arguably the biggest race of Daniel Suarez’s Cup career, he will have only five crew members working on his car during today’s two practice sessions because of travel issues involving some of the planes NASCAR chartered.
Crew chief Matt Swiderski told NBC Sports that the No. 99 team has only him, the team’s car chief, interior specialist, engine tuner and tire specialist for today’s sessions. There are 20 people on the crew roster for Suarez’s team.
This weekend marks the inaugural Cup points race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Suarez has talked about how much it means to have a Cup points race in his native country. He will be the only Mexican driver in the Cup race.
Suarez is without team members today because two of the flights NASCAR chartered to take Cup and Xfinity teams Thursday to Mexico City were grounded. One had an engine issue at takeoff. Swiderski said he was on that flight.
Swiderski said when a replacement plane arrived, the crew could not continue because they would exceed their hours.
Two planes, carrying NASCAR Cup and Xfinity driver and team members were grounded Friday in Charlotte.
Swiderski said the team went back to the shop and began to prioritize who they needed at the track. Trackhouse Racing got 14 crew members on a private plane. Among those left behind were the engineers. They will not arrive until Saturday so they can be at the shop when Cup practice takes place today. Swiderski said they will borrow spotters from Xfinity teams to help with the practice session.
It’s the debut of NASCAR’s premier circuit on the Autodromos Hermanos Rodriguez.
Swiderski said he got about 90 minutes of sleep before returning to the airport for a flight that left Charlotte, North Carolina, at 5 a.m. ET.
Swiderski noted that with only five people, it will be difficult to make changes throughout the practice as quickly as they would normally do so.
“The speed that you can make changes is a performance gain … making one more run we’ll be a little it slower just being down a couple of guys,” he said.
Read the full article here
