NASCAR will further examine if to penalize Austin Dillon for wrecking two drivers on the final lap to win Sunday night’s Cup race at Richmond Raceway and secure a spot in the playoffs, a series official said after the race.
Elton Sawyer, senior vice president of competition, said Sunday night that officials will take a deeper dive into the last lap.
Dillon ran into the back of Joey Logano between Turns 3 and 4 on the final lap and turned Logano, sending him into the wall. That allowed Denny Hamlin to get by Dillon, but Dillon hit Hamlin’s right rear. That sent Hamlin into the wall and Dillon to the win — his first since August 2022 at Daytona.
“Our sport has been a contact sport for a long time,” Sawyer told reporters after the race. “We always hear ‘Where’s the line and did someone cross the line?’
“I would say that the last lap was awful close to the line. We’ll take a look at all the available resources from audio to video. The spotters, we’ll listen to, crew chiefs and drivers and if anything rises to a level that we feel like we need to penalize, then we’ll do that on Tuesday.”
Asked if any NASCAR penalty could include taking the win away from Dillon, Sawyer told reporters: “Historically, that hasn’t been our DNA to take races away, but that’s not to say that going forward this wouldn’t start to set a precedent of do we have to look at it.”
NASCAR let Dillon’s moves stand Sunday night and he was scored the winner. Hamlin finished second and Logano 19th.
Asked if series officials initially didn’t see Dillon crossing a line with his actions, Sawyer said: “It happened fast, but if you look at that, in my view, that’s getting right up really close to crossing the line.”
Sawyer later told reporters: “I think we have to learn from the incident (Sunday night) and move forward and see if there’s something that … racing in the era that we race in today and the way our young kids are coming up racing in short tracks, we want to make sure that the highest level of racing, which is NASCAR Cup Series, it is done at the highest level and it’s done with the most integrity and sportsmanship and that’s what we’re about. We’ll see if we need to adjust accordingly.”
Car owner Richard Childress, who won six championships with Dale Earnhardt as his driver, defended Dillon’s actions Sunday.
“Short track racing is short track racing,” Childress said in response to a question from NBC Sports’ Nate Ryan. “You’re going to see it. I’ve seen it more than once. … When it comes down to the end of the day, any of these guys do what it takes to win the race there at the very end.”
Dillon was asked after the race about his spotter saying to “run him down, wreck him” in those frantic final seconds of the event.
“At that point I’m elbows up, holding the throttle down, just trying to get to the start/finish line literally,” Dillon said. “I am sideways off of (Turn) 4 ‘cause I’m already three-quarters of the lane up the track, hammer the gas.
“I’m just looking at the start/finish line. That’s it. I ain’t hearing (expletive) at that point, you know? Your eyes turn red. You see red, you get to the end of the race.
“Daytona, last lap when I won there at the 500, your eyes see red. There’s one thing on your mind: get to the start/finish line first, period. No matter if anybody came on the radio, it doesn’t matter. Like, you have one job to do, it’s to get to the start/finish line first. … A lot of people lose their jobs because they don’t get to the start/finish line first.”
After the race, Logano stopped on pit road near Dillon’s crew and throttled up, doing a brief burnout with people nearby. Asked if Logano could face any penalties, Sawyer said: “We’ll look at everything that happened on the last lap and post-race and see if any penalties need to be issued.”
