Suarez dominates Dover, advances to the second round of Xfinity Chase

Suarez dominated Sunday’s rain-delayed Drive Sober 200 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway and held off Ty Dillon to capture his second Xfinity Series win of the season.

With the win, Suarez joins Elliott Sadler as the only drivers locked into the second round of the Chase entering Friday night’s first-round elimination race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Chase outlook

Suarez’s JGR teammate, Erik Jones, who entered the Chase as the No. 1 seed, is on the opposite end of the title spectrum.

After finishing 16th Sunday because he had to make a late-race green-flag pit stop for fuel, Jones finds himself among the four Chase drivers lowest in points without a win (Dillon, Ryan Sieg and Brandon Jones are the others), who will be eliminated from title contention after the Charlotte race.

Suarez, who became the first Mexican driver to win a NASCAR national series race with his victory at Michigan in June, was ecstatic after the win, competing a wild burnout on the track, running down the front stretch to grab the checkered flag and then celebrating with his crew.

“We’ve had super strong cars in the past but sometimes you can’t just have a strong car, you have to put a whole race together. Today, it worked out very well,” Suarez said in Victory Lane.

“I told the guys they did a really good job adjusting on the car but right at the end, it was just unbelievably fast. This gives us more confidence and we’ll go to the next one in Charlotte a little bit more relaxed.

“We always have fun, but now we can enjoy the race a little bit more on the relaxed side and try to get another win.”

After struggling to find some consistency through the summer, Suarez has now finished eighth or higher in the past six races.

Battle with Allgaier

Twice during the race, Suarez appeared to make contact with a car in front of him as he was racing to the front, the last time with Justin Allgaier, who finished third.

“He (Allgaier) was racing aggressive because clean air was everything. He got me right there on the restart and I was a little faster than him and I knew if I was close to his rear bumper that I was going to make him loose,” Suarez said.

“I don’t think I ever touched him, but I just wanted to make him loose to be able to complete the pass. Like I said, very proud of everyone and I want to apologize to the (Justin Marks), it wasn’t my intention to wreck him that way.

“I felt like I had the inside line and he went to the bottom and I apologize for that.”

Ryan Blaney – a late substitution for Joey Logano because of the postponement – finished fourth and Alex Bowman completed the top five.

Sadler and Suarez lead the Chase field heading to Charlotte, followed by Allgaier, Brendan Gaughan, Ryan Reed, Darrell Wallace Jr., Blake Koch and Brennan Poole.

Dillon, Jones, Sieg and Jones occupy spots nine through 12.

Ryan Ellis, who hit both the outside and inside wall in a crash on Lap 61, has been transported to a local hospital for further evaluation. Another driver, Justin Marks, walked away from this massive shunt after contact with the eventual race winner. 

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Laps Led
1	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	200	1:57'16	123
2	3	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	200	5.625
3	7	Justin Allgaier	Chevrolet	200	6.328	3
4	22	Ryan Blaney	Ford	200	7.176
5	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	200	14.093
6	24	Lajoie Corey	Toyota	200	16.626	1
7	1	Elliott Sadler	Chevrolet	200	17.964	3
8	44	J.J. Yeley	Toyota	200	19.373
9	62	Brendan Gaughan	Chevrolet	200	20.109
10	16	Ryan Reed	Ford	200	23.948

CLICK HERE for complete race results