The NASCAR Cup Series drivers have two points of emphasis this weekend in Mexico City. The most obvious is to win the race. The second -- possibly equally important -- is to avoid wrecking Daniel Suarez.
After all, Suarez hails from Monterrey, Mexico. He is the favorite driver of the thousands of fans who will be in attendance for this weekend's Xfinity and Cup Series doubleheader.
"Do not, by any circumstances, wreck Daniel Suarez this weekend," Ryan Blaney said with a smile to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio before heading south.
"That is the only rule that I have because I would get just booed out of the stadium. You could not get to the bus fast enough."
His fellow drivers have also joked about the consequences of an ill-timed spin or bump gone wrong, but they know what's at stake this weekend.
"Obviously, you'd race your teammates a bit with a little bit more leniency," Shane van Gisbergen said on Friday. "But yeah, if I spin out the No. 99, I'll be hiding under cover trying to get out of this place (laughs). But I won't be doing that."
Michael McDowell has already been on the wrong side of a similar situation during a previous trip to Mexico City with another series. He saw the fan reactions to a favorite driver getting spun.
McDowell was completely innocent in this situation. He just happened to have the wrong colors on his car and firesuit during a fateful CART race in 2005.
"My experience down here was Timo Glock was my teammate and we had identical cars," McDowell said. "They were bright yellow rocket sport cars with a little bit of red on them. They looked identical. Hard to tell the difference between the two cars.
"Timo spun out Mario Dominguez, I believe. The crowd was chanting -- I won't tell you what they were chanting -- but we had to have an escort to get out of here. No joke. Just because I was wearing the same suit and the same car, and so I was reminiscing about that.
"I was like, you do not want to spin out (Daniel) Suarez here, I can tell you that. You do not want to do that. That is not a part of your strategy for the weekend."
McDowell continued and said that he won't let Suarez easily pass him if they are racing door-to-door. He's not going to give up a win if he has a chance to punch his ticket to the playoffs.
He just won't go out of his way to rough up his fellow driver in the closing laps, even if he is running in second place behind Suarez.
They have raced each other well in past Cup Series road course races, and McDowell believes they will continue to do so in Mexico City.