Daniel Suárez's Car Bursts Into Flames on First Pit Stop at Daytona
In a terrifying situation, Daniel Suárez's No. 99 Coke Zero Sugar Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 burst into flames while exiting pit road on Lap 37 of Saturday night's NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
Here are some video replays of the terrifying situation courtesy of the NBC broadcast team.
Daniel Suarez's car caught fire entering pit road. 🔥 #NASCAR | NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/nXdJuVu9V0
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 25, 2024
While it appeared that Suárez's car burst into flames all on its own, upon further review it was a weird sequence on pit road, which involved three drivers that led to the fire.
Suárez attempted to pull from his pit stall, but was blocked in by the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing car of Harrison Burton. As a result, Suárez had to stop for a moment to get around Burton's car. As that was happening, Denny Hamlin had pulled into Suárez's pit box as he was also trying to exit his pit stall but was now blocked in by Suárez.
As Hamlin's car sat there, the exhaust pipe on the right side of Hamlin's car backfired, which ignited a small fuel leak in Suárez's pit box, which then ignited the rear of Suárez's race car. Suárez said it was a complete freak accident, as nothing was different on the pit stop than any other race weekend.
A closer look at what happened between Denny Hamlin and Daniel Suarez that led to the fire. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/hNyTFqBGlE
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 25, 2024
"I was doing my pit stop just like every single weekend, and [Hamlin] was right behind me and [Harrison Burton] was in front of me. Unfortunately, I got boxed in. We know every single time we do pit stops, we drop a little bit of fuel. That's completely normal. Unfortunately, when [Hamlin] was leaving, he stopped right behind me because he was waiting for me to leave. I hear his exhaust fire up the little fuel I dropped," Suárez explained.
Suárez says once the fire sparked up, it engulfed the entire fuel cell area of his race car, and that he is bummed that his race ended so early. But the silver lining for Suárez is that he and none of his crew members were injured in the scary situation.
"Since I was still back there, that grabbed into the back of my car, where the fuel cell is. It just grabbed. It's an unfortunate situation to be honest," Suárez explained. "I don't what we could have done different. But just a little bit sad we're out of the race so early. But I'm glad I'm fine, and the entire team was fine."
As Suárez left his pit stall with the car on fire, the driver of the No. 99 Chevrolet was hoping the flames could be extinguished so he could continue battling for his second win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Unfortunately, Suárez, who runs the option rearview camera instead of a traditional rearview mirror in his racecar, couldn't see just how big the fire was that was trailing behind his car.
Had he been able to see the flames, he likely would have never tried driving all of the way back to pit road.
"The other crazy thing is I was able to feel the heat. But because I don't run a rearview mirror, I run the rearview camera, I couldn't see it. The rearview camera, as you guys know, is connected in the rear bumper. I can see the smoke, but I couldn't see the fire. I can feel the heat, but I couldn't see how big it was," Suárez said.
Suárez will end the race with a 40th-place finish after his car was retired from Saturday night's race after completing 37 laps, but fortunately, the 32-year-old racer escaped the inferno without injury.
TOBY CHRISTIE