Austin Dillon Takes Cowardly Way into Playoffs, NASCAR Blows Major Call

by Julian Spivey

 
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.
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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.