Daniel Suarez to represent Mexico in Daytona debut

Associated PRess

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.

Daniel Suarez wore a suit but ditched the tie the first time he spoke at the White House. The classy, yet casual, attire seemed to fit the moment for a speech in front of about 150 Latino students not much younger than him.

Suarez was invited to talk as part of President Barack Obama’s My Brother Keeper’s initiative, designed to help young people stay on track and think broadly about their future.

Growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, where Suarez’s love of cars blossomed as he tagged along at his father’s auto-restoration shop, the White House may as well have been as far away as the moon. He loved karting and VW Beetles and dreamed of racing stock cars at Autodromo in Mexico.

Those moments flashed for Suarez before he addressed the kids last October. He was still just a relatively unknown — at least in the United States — Xfinity Series driver, a month away from being crowned NASCAR’s El Campeon. Two months away from landing the NASCAR ride of a lifetime.

Speaking English that he taught himself from years of watching American movies and cartoons, Suarez kept his topic to one he knows best.

“All the time that I need to talk to new kids in a new generation,” the 25-year-old Suarez said, “the only thing I try to tell them is a little bit of my story.

Suarez is akin to, say, Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona when he returns home to Mexico.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted in Spanish to Suarez, and called him “a pride for Mexico and Latin America.” Weeks after Suarez became NASCAR’s first foreign-born champion, he was greeted in early December with a rock-star reception at a parade in Mexico City.

The high from the championship bash still hadn’t subsided weeks later when Suarez’s dinner with his family was interrupted by a call from NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs.

“They asked me if I was ready. I said yes,” Suarez said.