CONCORD, N.C. — Daniel Suarez, the only Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series race, is out at Trackhouse Racing at the end of the 2025 season.

Trackhouse and Suarez officially called the parting a “mutual decision” that allows the driver an earlier opportunity to pursue a new ride for next season.

While Trackhouse did not name a replacement in the No. 99 Chevrolet, Suarez’s departure opened the door for the team to promote teen sensation Connor Zilisch into the ride. Zilisch, who drives in the Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports, has run three Cup races for Trackhouse this season, including Saturday night at Atlanta.

Suarez has just two wins in 305 career Cup starts, and is a distant 29th in the points standings this season. The 33-year-old Suarez is in his fifth season with Trackhouse Racing and was the team’s first driver in 2021. He made NASCAR’s playoffs two times with Trackhouse.

“We took a team nobody had even heard of in 2021 and in just a couple of years we were winning races and running upfront on a weekly basis,” Suarez wrote on social media. “Just like the seasons in a year, sometimes things change and we have agreed to each go in our own direction.”

Trackhouse founder and owner Justin Marks thanked Suarez for his contributions.

“The role Daniel has played in the Trackhouse origin story and its first five years will remain a valued part of the company’s history forever,” Marks said. “His commitment, work ethic and dedication to the effort is one of the most impressive things I personally have seen in my career.”

Trackhouse Racing also has Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen under contract, along with Zilisch is its development driver. Chastain has six career wins and was the 2022 Cup Series runner-up while van Gisbergen has a win this year and is in the playoffs.

Suarez, who became an American citizen last year, also has three Xfinity Series wins and one Truck Series win. His 2016 championship in the second-tier Xfinity Series made him the only foreign-born driver to win a national series title.

He made a triumphant return last month to his home country when he won the Xfinity Series race in Mexico City driving for JR Motorsports at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Yet the balance of celebrating a homecoming with looming contract negotiations weighed on Suarez.

“It’s not the first time that I’ve been in this position. Definitely the first time with the Mexico race, but it’s not the first time that I’ve been in the position that we have to win or in the position that we have a contract negotiation in the middle of the season,” Suarez said. “It’s definitely a distraction. I won’t sit here and tell you that it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying to be as smart as possible and to put all this stuff on the side and just do my thing on the track.”

He’ll do his thing at the track in 2026 with yet another new team.

Suarez started his Cup career with Joe Gibbs Racing and has raced for Stewart-Haas Racing and Gaunt Brothers Racing. He has Cup wins in 2022 at Sonoma and last year in Atlanta.

More than three-fourths of the 15 full-time Cup organizations had either a driver or crew chief change to one of their teams entering this season.

With the NASCAR Cup Series hitting the halfway point in the 36-race schedule this past weekend at Atlanta, here is a look at the results of those changes so far.

23XI Racing

Charles Denike joined the organization to be Bubba Wallace’s crew chief, taking the role over from Bootie Barker.

“I truly believe he’s going to be a game-changer for 23XI,” team owner Denny Hamlin said early in the season.

One of the focuses with Wallace was to have a better start to the season. He did. Wallace was seventh in the points after six races this season (last year Wallace was 18th in points after six races).

Bubba Wallace leads Ryan Preece by 23 points for the final playoff spot heading into Sunday’s Chicago Street Race.

Wallace got off to quick start by often scoring stage points. His 61 stage points in the first six races ranked third in the series and were the most he had scored so early in the year.

Four accidents in the last eight races have dropped Wallace to the final playoff spot. He holds that position by 23 points with eight races left in the regular season.

Front Row Motorsports

Zane Smith and Noah Gragson joined the organization in the offseason, while Todd Gilliland was reunited with Chris Lawson, his former Truck crew chief.

Gilliland is 28th in points this season. He was 20th last year at this time. He has six top-15 finishes this year compared to seven at this time last year.

Gragson is 33rd in points this season. He was 25th at this time a year ago for Stewart-Haas Racing.

Smith has made a big jump.

Last year he was under contract to Trackhouse Racing but since there wasn’t room for him there, he ran for Spire Motorsports. He was 34th in points at the halfway point last year.

Coming off last weekend’s seventh-place finish at Atlanta — his second top 10 in the last four races — Smith is 25th in the standings. His best finish in the first half of last year was 13th. Smith has had six finishes better than that this year.

Haas Factory Team

Stewart-Haas Racing, a four-car operation, shut down after last season and Haas Factory Team emerged.

Haas Factory Team runs one car in Cup with Cole Custer, who returned to Cup after spending the previous two seasons in the Xfinity Series. Custer won the 2023 Xfinity title and finished second in the points last year.

Custer has been paired with first-year Cup crew chief Aaron Kramer.

Joe Gibbs Racing

This organization saw four major changes heading into this season.

Last year was Martin Truex Jr.’s final full-time season of racing. Joe Gibbs Racing hired Chase Briscoe to drive the No. 19 car with crew chief James Small.

Briscoe won at Pocono to give the No. 19 team its first victory since July 2023 at New Hampshire. Briscoe’s victory snapped a 68-race winless drought for the team. Briscoe also claimed the pole for the Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600. He has four poles this season.

In another key move, Joe Gibbs Racing moved Chris Gabehart — who had won 22 Cup races with Denny Hamlin from 2019-24 — to competition director.

Chris Gabehart, competition director at Joe Gibbs Racing, served as the racing strategist for Ty Gibbs’ team at Atlanta and is expected to continue in that role.

That started a string of events. Chris Gayle moved from his role as Ty Gibbs’ crew chief to become Hamlin’s crew chief.

Tyler Allen, who won eight of 33 Xfinity races in 2024 while working with six different drivers, moved up to Cup to be Gibbs’ crew chief this season.

Gayle has helped Hamlin win three races. Hamlin has 19 playoff points — the same amount he had at this time last year.

Gibbs was 11th in points halfway through last year. He is 24th in points this season. Gibbs is the only JGR driver yet to claim a playoff spot this season.

Gabehart was on Gibbs’ pit box last weekend at Atlanta, serving as the race strategist. He was on the radio with Gibbs and orchestrated strategy with Allen in an effort to help get Gibbs into the playoffs.

Kaulig Racing

Ty Dillon, who ran five races with the team last year, joined Kaulig Racing full-time this season. He took over the ride Daniel Hemric had last year. Hemric was 31st in points at the halfway mark last year. Dillon is 31st. Dillon has scored 34 more points than Hemric had at this time last year.

Trent Owens, who had been Hemric’s crew chief, was moved to Allmendinger’s team this season with Allmendinger returning to Cup full-time.

Allmendinger had three top-10 finishes in six starts at this time last year. He has four top-10 finishes in 18 starts this year, including a season-best fourth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600.

The last time Allmendinger ran the full series was 2023. He was 19th in points at the halfway mark. He is 17th in points this season.

Legacy Motor Club

The team brought in crew chief Travis Mack from Kaulig Racing to be paired with John Hunter Nemechek.

Nemechek has scored six top-10 finishes this season — his most in a Cup season. His passer ranking after the first 13 races was 29th but has improved to 16th in the last five races.

He was 27th in points last year at the halfway point and is 23rd this year. Nemechek is 10 points from 20th in the points. He is 20 points from 18th in the standings.

“I think Travis and I gelled really well from the very beginning, hold each other accountable when it comes to situations,” Nemechek said. “We spent quite a bit of time during the offseason communicating, looking at different races, talking about past races, simulation time, kind of just getting to know each other.”

Richard Childress Racing

After spending the past two years as Chase Briscoe’s crew chief at the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, Richard Boswell joined RCR to be Austin Dillon’s crew chief.

Dillon ranked 32nd in points at this time last year. He is 26th in points this season.

Dillon’s average finish this year is 20.1 — up five spots from last year.

Rick Ware Racing

After running select races last year, Cody Ware is running the full schedule for the team. Ware is coming off a season-best 13th-place finish at Atlanta.

Justin Haley was the team’s full-time driver last year before he moved to Spire Motorsports in a swap with seven races left that brought Corey LaJoie to RWR. LaJoie has run a limited schedule for the team this year.

RFK Racing

The organization expanded to three teams, adding the No. 60 car for Ryan Preece and pairing him with crew chief Derrick Finley.

Preece is the first driver outside a playoff spot, 23 points below the cutline. He already has a career-high seven top-10 finishes this season, including four in the last seven races.

“Last year, we put that team together and ran a partial schedule with Derrick Finley and we had a handful of different drivers and matured a lot of that team and a partial schedule, whether it be pit crew as well, and that team has fired off with putting Ryan in as the driver full-time and shown a lot of strength,” team owner Brad Keselowski said last weekend at Atlanta.

Spire Motorsports

This team had a few moves last season. With Stewart-Haas Racing closing, Rodney Childers moved from there to be Justin Haley’s crew chief.

That partnership lasted nine races before the two sides parted ways and Ryan Sparks, who had served as Haley’s crew chief for the final seven races of last season, returned.

Michael McDowell and crew chief Travis Peterson left Front Row Motorsports to join Spire. A year ago, McDowell was 22nd in the points. His average finish this year is 19.1. Last year at this time it was 20.9.

Trackhouse Racing

The organization expanded to three teams this year, adding Shane van Gisbergen to the Cup lineup and pairing him with crew chief Stephen Doran.

While the Cup rookie continues to learn the ovals, van Gisbergen has been strong — as expected — on the road courses. He won at Mexico to claim a playoff spot and was sixth at Circuit of the Americas.

Shane van Gisbergen won in Mexico in the most recent Cup road course race.

Wood Brothers Racing

Josh Berry joined the team after Stewart-Haas Racing closed last year. He replaced Harrison Burton. Crew chief Miles Stanley joined the team.

The pairing worked. Berry won at Las Vegas in his fifth race of the season with the team, putting the Wood Brothers back in the playoffs after making it last year through Burton’s victory at Daytona in August.

Berry has three top-10 finishes, which is one short of his career-best in Cup. He’s led 169 laps, his most in a season. Berry is 19th in points. That’s where he was a year ago. He has 363 points this season — six more than he had at this time last year.

What’s Happening?

In a bombshell news drop, the NASCAR Heat gaming franchise took to social media to announce that the Heat servers will permanently close on August 1, 2025. This is all part of the licensing transfer from Monster Games to iRacing.

• Monster Games acquired NASCAR licensing rights in 2016 and relaunched the NASCAR Heat series, beginning with NASCAR Heat: Evolution. In total, 5 console games were released under the moniker.
• In 2021, the rights lapsed, and Motorsport Games was created. Through this publisher, the game NASCAR 21 was released. However, recently iRacing acquired the rights to NASCAR console gaming, along with the rights to the World of Outlaws. The first game under their license will be NASCAR 25, which is slated for release this fall.
• As referenced in the NASCAR Heat post, the game will remain playable but only in single-player modes. On August 1, 2025, online features and updates will be disbanded permanently.

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CONCORD, N.C. — Daniel Suárez, the only Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national series race, is out at Trackhouse Racing at the end of the 2025 season.

Trackhouse and Suárez officially called the parting a “mutual decision” that allows the driver an earlier opportunity to pursue a new ride for next season.

While Trackhouse did not name a replacement in the No. 99 Chevrolet, Suárez’s departure opened the door for the team to promote teen sensation Connor Zilisch into the ride. Zilisch, who drives in the Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports, has run three Cup races for Trackhouse this season, including Saturday night at Atlanta.

Suárez has just two wins in 305 career Cup starts, and is a distant 29th in the points standings this season. The 33-year-old Suarez is in his fifth season with Trackhouse Racing and was the team’s first driver in 2021. He made NASCAR’s playoffs two times with Trackhouse.

“We took a team nobody had even heard of in 2021 and in just a couple of years we were winning races and running upfront on a weekly basis,” Suárez wrote on social media. “Just like the seasons in a year, sometimes things change and we have agreed to each go in our own direction.”

Trackhouse founder and owner Justin Marks thanked Suárez for his contributions.

“The role Daniel has played in the Trackhouse origin story and its first five years will remain a valued part of the company’s history forever,” Marks said. “His commitment, work ethic and dedication to the effort is one of the most impressive things I personally have seen in my career.”

Trackhouse Racing also has Ross Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen under contract, along with Zilisch is its development driver. Chastain has six career wins and was the 2022 Cup Series runner-up while van Gisbergen has a win this year and is in the playoffs.

Suárez, who became an American citizen last year, also has three Xfinity Series wins and one Truck Series win. His 2016 championship in the second-tier Xfinity Series made him the only foreign-born driver to win a national series title.

He made a triumphant return last month to his home country when he won the Xfinity Series race in Mexico City driving for JR Motorsports at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Yet the balance of celebrating a homecoming with looming contract negotiations weighed on Suárez.

“It’s not the first time that I’ve been in this position. Definitely the first time with the Mexico race, but it’s not the first time that I’ve been in the position that we have to win or in the position that we have a contract negotiation in the middle of the season,” Suárez said. “It’s definitely a distraction. I won’t sit here and tell you that it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying to be as smart as possible and to put all this stuff on the side and just do my thing on the track.”

He’ll do his thing at the track in 2026 with yet another new team.

Suarez started his Cup career with Joe Gibbs Racing and has raced for Stewart-Haas Racing and Gaunt Brothers Racing. He has Cup wins in 2022 at Sonoma and last year in Atlanta.

Yamaha Motor Corp., USA, donated a UMAX Rally 2+2 utility golf car to the Burbank Police Department. The donation supports the department’s motorcycle training unit through the Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative (OAI). The motorcycle training support vehicle will aid officers during skill-building exercises at the training grounds. Jay Leno, a longtime Burbank resident and motorcycle enthusiast, helped connect Yamaha and the Burbank PD.

“As a friend and supporter of the Burbank PD, I heard they needed a reliable support vehicle for their training grounds, and I knew Yamaha would be the perfect partner,” said Leno, who hosted the presentation at his world-famous Jay Leno’s Garage, featured on the popular YouTube series of the same name. “The Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative is an incredible program that helps keep off-road recreation sustainable and safe for future generations.”

Monthly Training Gets a Boost from Motorcycle Training Support Vehicle

The Burbank Police Department conducts monthly training for motorcycle officers to maintain advanced riding skills. Officers will use the new Yamaha UMAX Rally 2+2 motorcycle training support vehicle during course design. They will also use it during course instruction. Furthermore, the vehicle will support operations at the department’s motorcycle training facility.

“We’re extremely thankful for Yamaha’s generous support and commitment to rider safety,” said Rafael Quintero, chief of police for the City of Burbank. “Whether it’s on the highway or on a trail, responsible riding starts with training and preparation, and we’re proud to set that example.”

Yamaha OAI Builds Safer, Sustainable Recreation

The Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative protects and enhances access to public land for outdoor and motorized recreation. It leads the powersports industry in land access advocacy and responsible riding education. Since 2008, OAI has contributed more than $7 million to over 535 projects across the U.S.

“While most OAI grants fund trail building, maintenance and conservation efforts, we also recognize that access can be threatened by unsafe or irresponsible behavior,” said Steve Nessl, Yamaha Motorsports marketing director. “That’s why we’re proud to support the Burbank PD’s training efforts — it’s a win for the community and for rider education.”

Preparations are underway for the NASCAR Chicago Street Race, but the biggest street closures are set to go into effect in coming hours.

The circuit, set up through Chicago’s Grant Park, will play host to the Xfinity Series’ Loop 110 on Saturday and the Cup Series’ Grant Park 165 on Sunday, and the top drivers in the world will make their way up and down several iconic Chicago streets.

Those streets are the focus of the latest rounds of closures, which could impact Chicago commuters on Thursday, according to officials.

Roosevelt Road, located along the far southern edge of the circuit, will close at 10 p.m. Wednesday between Michigan Avenue and DuSable Lake Shore Drive, Chicago officials said.

Just two hours later, another major closure will go into effect, as southbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive will close between Randolph and McFetridge, impacting a major north-south thoroughfare for Chicago motorists.

On Thursday night at 10 p.m., Michigan Avenue will close between Roosevelt Road and Jackson Drive, officials say. At the same time, northbound DuSable Lake Shore Drive will close between McFetridge and Randolph.

The races take place Saturday and Sunday. There will be closures on Michigan Avenue, Monroe Street, Ida B. Wells Drive, Indiana Avenue, Post Place and Garvey Court, among others. A full list can be found on the OEMC website.

After the race is over, crews will work to quickly reopen as many major thoroughfares as possible, focusing on DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue, according to the city.

All race-related cleanup will likely be completed within a week, according to the city’s schedule.