Suarez, McDowell exchange punches, words during Qualifying

Tempers overflowed between Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell during qualifying for the TicketGuardian 500 at the ISM Raceway.

Suarez was outwardly distraught that McDowell blocked him during the opening 10-minute qualifying session. The 27-year-old from Monterrey, Mexico preceded to attempt to spin McDowell out on his cool off lap before confronting him fist-to-cuffs on pit road.

The pair briefly exchanged punches and argued on pit road about the incident.

“Just a lack of respect,” Suarez grumbled. “Track position is really big in this series. You have to qualify well in order to have a good stall on pit road.

“Everybody in this garage knows that the second lap is a good one. You have to try to get out of the way if someone is on a hot lap and he didn’t. He killed me in one corner, I thought he was going to get out of the way in the second corner and he didn’t.

“He was disappointed that I tried to wreck him afterwards but that’s part of racing.”

“I’m the kind of driver that I’m going to give a lot of respect to you, always, if you give me respect back. If you don’t give me respect, I’m going to go kick your ass.”

McDowell, however, noted that the incident was a miscommunication on his part by waiting to go out until the session was nearly over.

“Just miscommunication on the racetrack,” said McDowell. “We all kind of waited until the end and we just had a lot of traffic.

“He was upset that I held us up on his good lap, and then he crashed us and I just didn’t appreciate it.”