Jones fastest in Monster Energy Open practice

By Kelly Crandall | May 19, 2017 8:58 PM ET

Erik Jones was fastest in Monster Energy Open practice Friday afternoon at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a lap of 189.056 mph.

The Furniture Row Racing rookie paced the session over Clint Bowyer (187.970 mph), Chase Elliott (186.400 mph), Ryan Blaney (186.021 mph) and AJ Allmendinger (185.893 mph).

Session results

Just as teams already qualified for the All-Star Race did in their practice session, Open teams were also given a set of option tires to run. It will allow the drivers who advance into Saturday night’s Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race an idea of how those tires will react.

“Roughly Wednesday morning, right around there,” Smith said of getting the call to drive the 43. “It was something like that. I didn’t know much until then. Obviously, I knew that he was hurt, but didn’t know to what extreme or anything like that. When they called, and said, ‘Hey, can you do this weekend?’ I said, ‘Absolutely. I’d be honored to and I’d love to,’ and that was pretty much it.

“Just getting things sped up and trying to get things ready as quick as we could. That was the next process. I don’t know if it’s good or bad doing these type of things, but I feel like I’ve got quite a bit of experience at it at this point. They’re all different and they’re all unique in their own way, but they kind of flow the same way.”

There was one incident during the 1 hour, 25-minute session when Jeffrey Earnhardt’s No. 33 Chevy started to smoke heavily out of the right side. It was unclear whether it was an engine or oil line issue.

The Open will run Saturday night before All-Star Race and will consist of 24 drivers looking to advance into the main race. There are two ways to advance from the Open: by winning one of the three stages (split into 20-20-10 laps) or earning the fan vote.

Cup Series, NASCAR