Bowyer, Blaney, Suarez, Elliott Advance Through Open

Fifty laps of wheel-to-wheel racing put Monster Energy Open stage winners Clint Bowyer, Ryan Blaney and Daniel Suarez in Saturday’s Monster Energy All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Chase Elliott advanced through the Fan Vote.

Bowyer led all 20 laps of Stage 1 to make the All-Star Race for the eighth time in his career. Blaney advanced to his first All-Star tilt by holding off a spirited charge from Elliott in the closing laps of Stage 2. Suarez held off Austin Dillon and Elliott on a late restart in Stage 3 to punch his ticket. Dillon wound up second, Elliott third, Regan Smith fourth and Danica Patrick fifth.

CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Haas Automation Ford (Stage 1 Winner): “A million bucks, now it’s time to go to work. To win the million you first have to win the Open (stages). And we did that. Now we got to go at it.”

RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft Ford (Stage 2 Winner): “It took off good. I thought the first five laps (of Stage 2) were pretty good. I couldn’t get into both corners which hurt us, but we held off Chase in the end. Getting off pit road first was important.”

DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 19 ARRIS Toyota (Stage 3 Winner): “I did some racing there and it turned out well. Now we go with the big guys. It’s going to be fun. We learned quite a bit in the first 50 laps. We’re going to have to make some adjustments and get a bit stronger but it’s going to be fun.

CHASE ELLIOTT, No. 24 Mountain Dew Chevrolet (Fan Vote Winner): “Thanks to all the fans. This means a lot. We’re racers and we certainly would’ve liked to have raced our way in, but it means a lot to get voted in. We’ll try to go back and clean things up for the race.”

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