After debating whether to punish Austin Dillon, of Richard Childress Racing, for purposefully crashing the lead and third-place cars on the last lap of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series at Richmond Raceway, the race organization decided on Wednesday. Dillon will be allowed to keep his contentious victory, but it will not count toward playoff eligibility.
Along with depriving Dillon of his fifth career playoff opportunity, NASCAR docked him and the owner of RCR 25 points, fined Joey Logano $50,000 for recklessly driving on pit road following the race and spinning his tires close to Dillon’s team in an apparent act of frustration, and suspended Dillon’s spotter, Brandon Benesch, for three races for encouraging Dillon to wreck Denny Hamlin and Logano.
This is not how NASCAR usually handles cases where a driver wins a race and then gets penalized for utilizing excessively aggressive tactics. In this case, though, Dillon’s collision with leader Joey Logano’s vehicle and subsequent left turn that allowed him to hook the right rear of Denny Hamlin’s car in third place to win forced the officials to intervene. With four regular season races left, Dillon was running second at the time and in a “must-win” situation to make the playoffs.
Both Logano and Hamlin adamantly called on NASCAR night to penalize Dillon.
“Absolutely a line was crossed, but it’s an invisible line,” Hamlin said on Sunday night. “It’s not defined. I mean, they have rules and provisions for stuff like this, but they never take action for it.”
Officials announced Dillon as the winner at first, but later on Sunday night they stated they will look into the incident and decide later in the week whether to impose any penalties.
Joey Logano was fined $50,000 for careless driving on pit road on Sunday. (Peter Casey / USA Today)
“The last lap was awfully close to the line,” said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition. “We’ll take a look at all the available resources from audio to video; we’ll listen to spotters, crew chiefs and drivers. If anything rises to a level that we think we need to penalize, we’ll do that on Tuesday.
“Historically, that hasn’t been our DNA to take races away, but that’s not to say that going forward that this wouldn’t start a precedent. We’ll have to look at it.”
The fact that NASCAR did not begin deliberations until late on Wednesday afternoon illustrates how unusual this incident is.
Long, aggressive driving has been a defining characteristic of NASCAR, particularly in the final laps of a Cup race when victory is on the line. Officials have generally allowed drivers to race as they see fit, and only seldom have they disqualified a driver for driving too aggressively. The last time it happened was when Ricky Rudd was penalized at Sonoma in 1991 for spinning race leader Davey Allison on the last lap. Allison was given the victory credit and Rudd was moved to second.
The accepted and unacceptable driving code has been the subject of intense discussion in recent years, with many seasoned drivers complaining that younger drivers lack restraint. Since the Cup switched to a knockout playoff structure in 2014, where a driver is essentially guaranteed a spot in the 10-race playoffs based on their regular season results, the level of intensity has only increased.
Dillon came into Richmond so far behind in points (32nd) that winning one of the final four regular-season races would be his only chance to qualify for the postseason. And with two regulation laps to go, he was primed to take advantage of a yellow, which would have erased his comfortable lead and forced an OT finale.
However, Logano got the better of Dillon on the ensuing restart, opening up enough of a lead that Dillon and the No. 3 RCR crew became desperate, radioing their driver to do whatever it took to pass Logano.
“It’s just the rules of the sport, right?” Dillon said on Sunday night. “It is what it is. Wins get you into the next round. I did what I had to do to cross the start-finish line first.
“I’ve seen Denny and Joey make moves that have been running people up the track to win. This is the first opportunity in two years for me to be able to get a win. I drove in there and kept all four tires turning across the start-finish line. To me, I’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years in NASCAR where people move people. It’s just part of our sport. Remember when Joey said ‘short-track racing.’ He knows what it was.”
Chris Buescher advances past the provisional cut line to join the 16-driver field as a result of Dillon’s elimination from the playoffs. With three races left, Buescher and Ross Chastain are tied for the last transfer place, although he has the advantage due to superior finish. Chastain’s best finish is fourth, and Buescher’s is second.
(Top photo by Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
