NASCAR penalizes Austin Dillon for rough driving at Richmond, says win will not count toward playoffs
NASCAR announced Wednesday afternoon it will penalize Austin Dillon for his actions in the final corner at Richmond Raceway, ruling that his win will not count toward the playoffs after he spun both Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin out in the final corner. NASCAR determined that Dillon’s actions violated their playoff eligibility rules, dropping him from the No. 13 seed on the playoff grid back to 31st in the regular-season championship standings. Dillon and his team have also been assessed a 25-point penalty in both the driver and owners standings.
After a caution with two laps to go erased a virtually certain victory for him and after losing the lead to Joey Logano on an overtime restart, Dillon made a desperate move in the final corner, making a dive at Logano’s bumper from multiple carlengths back on corner entry and spinning Logano out in the middle of Turns 3 and 4. Dillon’s move caused him to miss the apex of the corner, allowing Denny Hamlin to get to his inside for what would have been the winning pass, but Dillon hung a left into Hamlin’s right rear, sending Hamlin into the wall on the exit of Turn 4 and ensuring Dillon would get back to the finish line first for his fifth career Cup win and his first in two years.
As they were not penalized in post-race — NASCAR has not stripped a driver of a win for rough driving in over 30 years — Dillon and his team will be permitted to keep the victory. However, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said Dillon’s actions “crossed the line” in regards to the integrity of the sport, citing SMT data that showed intent on Dillon’s part to spin both Logano and Hamlin’s cars.
“Anything that we feel like, from the sanctioning body, that has crossed the line from a standpoint that compromises the integrity of our playoff format as well as our championship, we are going to get involved,” Sawyer said. “…This is not something that NASCAR really wants to get in the middle of. For years we’ve allowed our drivers — and we will continue to allow them — to race. Everyone one of the drivers in those national series garages … they understand where the line is.
“… We just felt like in this case, we needed to let them know that we know what the line is as well, and this is not something that we’re gonna tolerate.”
One consideration in NASCAR’s ruling was Austin Dillon’s team radio communications on the final lap, in which spotter Brandon Benesch implored Dillon multiple times to “wreck him!” in reference to Logano and Hamlin. NASCAR has suspended Benesch for the next three races, amounting to the remainder of the regular season.
In a statement put on Wednesday, Richard Childress Racing stated that the team is “very disappointed” with NASCAR’s decision, stating that they do not agree with the ruling and plan to appeal.
NASCAR has also fined Joey Logano $50,000 for his actions in post-race, in which he expressed his displeasure with Dillon’s crew by doing a burnout nearby them, endangering bystanders including Dillon’s wife and young children. Logano was immediately rebuked by a NASCAR official for his behavior upon climbing out of his car before seething over Dillon’s driving to NBC Sports, calling it “chickenshit”
“He’s four carlengths back, not even close, then he wrecks the 11 to go along with it and then he’s gonna go up there and thank God and praise everything with his baby,” Logano fumed. “It’s a bunch of B.S. It’s not even freaking close.”
With Dillon’s penalty removing him from the playoff grid, four open spots on the 16-driver grid continue to remain available with three races to go in the regular season. Chris Buescher and Ross Chastain are currently tied for the final spot in the playoff standings, with Buescher holding the current tiebreaker.
