It doesn’t take much talent to win a race like Austin Dillon did on Sunday night, which is good for him because, based on the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, Dillon was only the 32nd most talented driver out of the 34 full-time drivers.
​
On a two-lap overtime run at the end of Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway in Richmond, Va. Dillon, who was likely going to win the race under green when a late caution involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece came out, was passed on the overtime restart by Joey Logano.

Knowing that a win was the only way Dillon could clinch a Cup Series playoff spot for his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, Dillon made the last-ditch decision to wreck Logano to win the race. He didn’t try to pass Logano. He didn’t try the widely believed to be fair “bump-and-run” move on Logano. He just aimed the front bumper of his Chevrolet at the back bumper of Logano’s No. 22 Penske Racing Ford and sent him spinning around and wrecking into the outside wall. The contact between Dillon and Logano was enough to both slow Dillon down and push him up the track, allowing the third-place driver of Denny Hamlin to pass Dillon but as soon as that happened Dillon hooked Hamlin in the right rear of his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, widely considered the most dangerous move in the sport, and put him into the wall. With Dillon having demolished any car in his path, he crossed the finish line in first place, was granted the victory, and clinched a playoff berth.

It was a miracle there was no post-race incident involving Dillon, Logano, Hamlin and pit crews for all three teams.

In post-race interviews, multiple drivers used the word “chickenshit” to explain Dillon’s method of racing and winning, and it’s pretty appropriate. I’ve never seen a more disgusting, despicable, unsportsmanlike, cowardly and chickenshit way for a driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race in 23 years of watching this sport.

The fact NASCAR allowed the entire thing to stand in the immediate aftermath of the race has drivers and fans alike challenging the sport in serious ways, no more than 54-time Cup Series race winner Hamlin, now one of the sport’s elder statesmen, who told Fox Sports reporter Bob Pockrass post-race: “Where’s the line, Bob? I mean, that’s the thing. We have rules to prevent ridiculous acts but it’s been a long time since those rules have been enforced.”

He added: “We’re never ever going to get taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating.”

Hamlin is right. NASCAR has rules it can enforce in situations like this that can penalize aggressive driving, and we’ve seen the sport enforce them in lower series this season in far less egregious on-track incidents than what Dillon did on the final lap at Richmond. Maybe NASCAR views the final lap as an “anything goes” scenario? But shouldn’t the rules matter the most when the most is on the line?

NASCAR not penalizing Dillon for his egregious overaggressive driving on the final lap and his reaping massive rewards as a result makes the whole sport look like a joke.

It should’ve been an easy call for NASCAR to make and they blew it.

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Competition, told the media about an hour after Sunday’s race that the sport would review video, audio and data to determine if any penalties would be announced as a result of the final lap and any such penalties would be announced on Tuesday, the day of the week NASCAR typically announces such penalties. But I wouldn’t expect anything major to come out of that review. It would be unprecedented for the sport to take a win away from a driver two days later.

And so, NASCAR has potentially set another dangerous precedent in that a driver doing anything at all to clinch their way into the playoff field is fair game even if it’s the most cowardly, chickenshit way of ever doing so.

There were many fantastic Olympic moments and feats that I saw on Friday, August 9, at the Paris Games, but the moment that made me raise an eyebrow in surprise and say, “Let’s go!” didn’t come from one of the athletes but NBC Sports track & field reporter Lewis Johnson.

Johnson has held the position of track and field sideline reporter, essentially, throughout the athletics portion of the Games. He’s worked every Olympics, both Summer and Winter, for NBC Sports since the 2000 Sydney Games. He has interviewed the American athletes following their events — both when they brought home the gold and on Friday night when once again they faltered spectacularly in an event they’ve continuously shot themselves in the foot at in the last two decades of the Olympic Games.

On Friday night, the American men were tasked with the men’s 4x100m relay, considered one of the biggest track events of the Olympics, an event they have struggled in time after time over the last few Olympics with disqualifications due to dropping the baton, other transfer issues and a doping ban that took away a silver medal from the 2012 London Games. The men’s relay team has failed to medal in the 4x100m since the 2004 Athens Games. Since 1995, the U.S. has had 11 baton errors that have resulted in disqualifications, according to NBC News.

The men’s relay team was considered the favorites to win gold in Paris but started at a disadvantage when Noah Lyles, gold medalist of the men’s 100m earlier in the week, had to be scratched from the event with Covid. His replacement was Christian Coleman. Coleman led off the event, and the baton transfer issue occurred at the end of his stint when Kenny Bednarek, the second stint runner, took off, and Coleman couldn’t catch him. Bednarek almost had to come to a complete stop to take the transfer, and the costly error wound up with the USA crossing the line in seventh place in the event, outside of the medals. The finishing position didn’t matter anyway, as a post-race review revealed the Coleman-Bednarek exchange took place outside the exchange zone, resulting in this team’s disqualification.

The job of a journalist isn’t merely to ask questions. It’s to get answers. It’s to ask those questions during the good and bad times. You can’t just get the smiles and happy tears moments. Doing so would essentially make NBC Sports public relations for Team USA.

So often, in sports journalism, journalists ask questions, and they receive non-answer answers from athletes—statements that don’t really say anything and don’t answer the questions as asked.

This has somewhat trained sports fans to see the act of a post-game/event interview as just a formality. It's a “how was the game?/It was good” moment between media and athletes that does nothing to provide substance to the broadcast we’re watching.

Nobody expects journalists to hold athletes to the same level of questioning they would expect for politicians—though journalists won’t even demand things like basic facts from politicians anymore—but that’s another story for another time. When a question is asked, it’s reasonable for a journalist to want a real, true, authentic answer and, if they don’t get one, to keep pushing for it.

That’s what Johnson did on Friday night.

He opened his interview by asking Coleman what happened during the baton exchange, a valid question viewers should want to know the answer to.

Coleman gave a typical athlete non-answer answer.

“In the heat of the moment, we just didn’t get it done today.”  

OK, we saw that. We know that. The question was, “What happened” to cause that?

Johnson followed up with a more specific question to attempt to pull an actual answer from Coleman. “Why didn’t you catch up to Kenny [Bednarek] there?”

Coleman: “We just didn’t get it done.”

Johnson: “But you have to explain, don’t you, exactly why, after all the practices, that exchange didn’t happen?”

At this point, I truly noticed the interview and realized this was a journalist who did not accept the stereotypical athlete's babble. I literally blurted out from my couch, “Good job, Lewis!”

It’s fair of Johnson to ask because he’s still trying to get to the truth behind the error, but no, an athlete isn’t obligated to answer the question. But to not do so could make them look poorly in the eyes of the viewer – though it should be noted the overwhelming online response was that Coleman and his teammates took the interview admirably and Johnson was “unprofessional” (I’ll get to that in a moment).

Coleman responded: “It just didn’t happen. It wasn’t our day today.”

Johnson continued to ask specific questions. “Did Kenny leave early?”

Coleman: “I think as a team, we just didn’t get it done today.”

And that was the end of the interview because you can only ask so many times before ultimately giving up because, as I said, an athlete isn’t obligated to answer.

I knew immediately that Johnson was going to be hammered online. Journalists are among the most hated professionals in this country – not without some good reasons but also mostly misguided people who don’t understand the profession.

Many don’t realize there’s more to it than asking a question and accepting whatever answer is given.
Many online called Johnson’s interview unprofessional. Many viewed it as him trying to get Coleman to throw his teammate Bednarek “under the bus,” as if a “what happened” question could be wrong. Do we not remember our Five Ws (Who, What, Why, When & Where)?  Some online even called for Johnson to be fired by NBC Sports.  

But this is what actual journalism looks like, and it’s unfortunate that so many sports journalists specifically sit back and accept the non-answer answers they’re so frequently given. 

​If there is something I’ve learned from watching the last few Olympics, it’s that you can’t criticize American Olympian heroes, not even in the slightest. Not even when asking others on your platform a question that might result in a negative answer.

American Olympic viewers don’t want to think of their Olympian heroes as anything less than perfect, maybe not so much as athletes, but as people.

It’s truly a positive response. It’s nice to want to go to battle for people even when their athletic performance might not be up to their best. To see them as human because they are. They might have things going on off or outside the court, mat, pool, etc., affecting their performance.

But as someone who has followed sports for a lifetime, it’s weird to see this response from fans. I’m used to the cutthroat type of sports fan. The kind that when an athlete isn’t perfect, they’ll let you and, often even them, know about it in their reactions, either with boos at the venue or with tweets/comments on social media.

Often, this vitriol is dumb, as in the basketball fans who believe LeBron James is a bum despite a resume that rivals most of the greatest players of all time in his sport.

Sometimes, it’s warranted. Example: Why isn’t Clayton Kershaw the same pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the postseason as he is in the regular season?

As long as sports fans don’t go out of their way to completely bash or belittle an athlete, these criticisms are valid, just as they would be if one were to review the performance of musicians, actors and authors. It’s just a part of public life.

So, when I ask our followers on our various social media pages a question like: Has American swimmer Caeleb Dressel negatively affected his Olympic legacy with his poor performance in the 2024 Paris Olympics after the defending champion failed to medal in the men’s 50m freestyle and failed to even qualify for the final in the men’s 100m butterfly I’m dumbfounded to receive replies like: “No, it doesn’t and you should be ashamed for posting this” as I did from one person on our Threads post.

I’m dumbfounded because if I were to ask a question like: Is Atlanta Braves slugger Matt Olson letting his team down amidst a season slump? I wouldn’t receive a response like: “He’s trying his best. Leave him alone.”

I think some of it has to do with the big USA and American flag on their Olympic uniforms, too. There’s a bit of that “how dare you say something bad about America!” uber-patriotism about the Olympic games.

It may also be that the Olympic Games attract a more casual sports fan than the professional and collegiate sports we watch on an annual basis.

But sports is and has always been graded on performance.

Athletes are under pressure. It’s part of the game, part of the competition. These games and events are win-or-lose, and athletes are scored on their performance.

We can feel empathy and sympathy for them when they don’t do well, but they are graded on how they perform in their field. Performing poorly on your sport’s biggest stage will affect how some view one’s legacy.

And for the many people who responded that Dressel had stepped away from the sport for mental health purposes, I can feel empathy and sympathy for him. But Simone Biles also stepped away from gymnastics for multiple years (longer than Dressel was away from swimming), and she returned to the biggest stage and furthered her legacy as the G.O.A.T. in her sport. She’s already won two gold medals and will likely win more.

So, if I can celebrate Biles's comeback furthering her legacy, I should be able to knock Dressel down a notch or two for not doing the same.

Nothing is ever going to keep Dressel from being an Olympic legend. Nine gold medals have clinched his spot among the greatest in his respective sport and the Olympic Games.

But athletes aren’t free from criticism simply because they’re competing for their country.

​I’ve been having a problem over the first week of the 2024 Paris Olympics that I’m sure many people can identify with, especially those who work full-time jobs during the day.

Spoilers.

Time zone differences have always been a problem for people who want to watch the Olympics, but in today’s world of 24/7 access to the Internet, news, and social media, it’s harder than ever to avoid spoilers for Olympic events before you’ve had the chance to see them.

The Games are only halfway through, and I’ve already known the results of many of the most significant events before sitting down in the evening to watch what I’ve recorded on YouTube or catch up on via Peacock from earlier in the day.

The days of being able to go into the evening telecast of whatever network is broadcasting the Olympics without being spoiled are over. Back then, you had two ways of finding results: watching the evening broadcast or waiting for the next day’s newspaper. Now the results are all over the Internet the moment the events end. There are some plusses, though, if you have the ability to you can see any and every Olympic event live.

I completely understand this is a first-world problem of the highest order. If I could just shut my phone off for the day, there would be no problems. But how many of us, especially with our shortened attention spans – much of which have been caused by our phones and the Internet/social media – can bring ourselves to do that?

So, the question is … in this modern world of direct-to-audience media, should publications, websites, etc., cater to their audience by time-delaying their coverage of Olympic events?

In theory, it would be great. We’ve been doing it on our social media feeds for this website, but that’s more out of necessity. We cannot see many of these events live because this isn’t our full-time gig. When the Olympics are held in Los Angeles in 2028, you can bet we’ll be timelier with our coverage.

The answer is no. The media shouldn’t delay its coverage because some of us haven’t had the chance to tune into these events live.

One of the central tenets of journalism is that it be timely. That used to mean getting it out in the newspaper the next day. Later, it meant making the nightly or evening news. Once the Internet was created, that meant once the event ended.

The Internet has led to a lot of bad journalism. Sometimes, publications/websites/journalists try to get the story out so fast that they make mistakes or are just plain sloppy.

However, delaying content would be unethical.

As sports fans, we must be more vigilant about avoiding these spoilers. It’s entirely on us, and that’s how it should be.