Daniel Suarez wins delayed Dover race, advances in Xfinity Chase

Rea White

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Daniel Suarez wins delayed Dover race, advances in Xfinity Chase image

Daniel Suarez won Sunday’s rain-delayed race at Dover. The victory locked him into the Round of 8 in the Xfinity Series Chase.

Suarez took his final lead in the Drive Sober 200 with a bold move on Justin Allgaier. 

“Clean air was everything," he said on the NBC broadcast. "He got me right there on the restart … I knew if I was close to his rear bumper I was going to make him loose. I don’t think I ever touched him, but that was enough to make him loose and be able to complete the pass.”

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Fellow Chase contenders Ty Dillon finished second, with Allgaier in third. Ryan Blaney and Alex Bowman rounded out the top five. With three laps to go, Dillon had been in a fierce battle with Allgaier to take that second spot, with Dillon completing the pass for the spot.

For Suarez, it was his second career victory in 63 Xfinity starts and his first at Dover.  

While Suarez was celebrating advancing into the next round, the problems continued for Erik Jones. He entered the Chase as the top seed, then endured a crash at Kentucky dropped Jones him to ninth in the standings, one spot out of the transfer position.

At Dover, he pitted with a vibration to see if he had a tire issue, throwing him off sequence. He then had to pit for fuel with eight laps to go while running seventh. He went on to finish 16th, which puts him 10th in the standings with only the race at Charlotte to go before the field drops from 12 to eight drivers. He is six points behind the cutoff to make the Chase.

"Just kind of an embarrassing day overall," he said. "It's pretty embarrassing not even being in the Chase right now for the next round too. Got a lot of work to do. Got to have a good run at Charlotte now for sure. It's just unfortunate. It's just something I would have never saw coming and just pretty disappointed."

The race was marred by cautions throughout, with drivers getting on track after rain had interfered with practice and race schedules all weekend. Rain pushed the race from Saturday afternoon to Sunday. Several drivers planning to run double-duty were forced to make the call on whether to try both races on Sunday. Chase contenders Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Austin Dillon opted to focus solely on the Cup race while Josh Wise, Matt DiBenedetto, Ty Dillon and Regan Smith will be running both races.

Justin Marks endured a hard hit in the race after contact with Suarez. Marks spun into the outside wall, crashing hard. He was evaluated at the care center and was OK after the accident. 

Suarez apologized for the contact after the race, saying “that wasn’t my intention to wreck him that way.”

 

Rea White