NASCAR Crash Course: Austin Dillon snags an upset win at Richmond, but crosses a line in the process

After snagging NASCAR's biggest upset in years, Austin Dillon stood defiant atop the Richmond Raceway podium. Moments earlier, he had left hooked one car, then right hooked another, two knockout punches that destroyed his peers' respect along with their sheet metal.

But they're not the one holding the trophy and a ticket to the NASCAR playoffs. He is.

"In your shoes," Dillon asked the press, "what would you do?"

The desperation moves came after Dillon's Cinderella story was smashed mere seconds before completion. His No. 3 team had entered Richmond miles away from championship contention: no laps led, no top-five finishes, 32nd in the standings. Dillon found himself some 455 points behind Kyle Larson, criticism mounting that he should step aside from a family-owned ride at Richard Childress Racing.

All that melted away during a Richmond reset after NASCAR's two-week Olympic break. Dillon was fastest in practice, qualified sixth and held his own over the race's first half. During the final stage, he reeled in two of the sport's short track aces, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin, passing Hamlin cleanly for the lead with 28 laps remaining.

It was the first race Dillon led on a short track in over two years, in position to end a winless streak that stretched back to Daytona in August 2022. Only twice in a decade of full-time Cup competition had Dillon won outside Daytona: Charlotte in 2017 (fuel mileage) and Texas in 2020 (tire strategy). It was arguably the first time he was in position to do so with the fastest car.

"It was a situation," Dillon said, "Where we had a shot to go to Victory Lane and change our whole entire season."

But with less than two laps to go, a wreck between Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. changed the complexion of the race. NASCAR Overtime meant a switch to the sport's new red option tire, a compound Dillon was a tick slower on earlier in the night. Outgunned on the restart by Logano, he was two car lengths back on the final lap and seemed destined for a disappointing second.

Or so it seemed.

Dillon sent it into the corner on a mission: bump the No. 22 or wreck trying. It worked, but came at a price: the door was open for Hamlin on the inside, in position to sneak by both of them.

No problem. Dillon just right hooked the No. 11 into the wall instead, taking home a trophy he felt he rightfully deserved.

"The 'mean to' was definitely to move the 22," Dillon explained. "The rest just was whatever my body did."

The rest of the sport was left somewhere between incredulous and incensed.

"Apparently, you can come from five car lengths back and completely wreck someone and then wreck another one to the line and we're going to call that racing," Logano said. "Cool. That's fun… I just beat him fair and square on the restart and he just pulls a chickenshit move."

"It's just crazy shit, honestly," added Tyler Reddick, who finished runner-up in the chaos. "I know how important it is to win races, the position he's in, 32nd in points, so I understand it. But they've always told us right hooking people is not the way to do it."

Indeed, that move has earned drivers one-race suspensions, most recently for Chase Elliott doing it to Hamlin last year. What makes the race for the win any different when it comes to safety?

"It's obviously foul, but it is fair in NASCAR," Hamlin claimed this time. "It is a different league. There are no penalties for rough driving or anything like that, so it opens up the opportunity for Austin [Dillon] to just do whatever he wants. The problem that I have is I got hooked in the right rear again.

"I'm just minding my own business, and he turned left, and he hooked me in the right rear and blew my damn shoulder out."

Any penalties won't be announced until later this week, but initial indications are Dillon will keep his postseason berth. It's a black eye to a finish that overshadows an impressive run to the front by a team most counted out.

"It is what it is," Dillon said. "Wins get you into the next round. I did what I had to do to cross the start/finish line first."

Traffic Report

Green: Goodyear. The crazy ending overshadows a banner night for Goodyear and NASCAR's decision to include two tire compounds. The red option tire created a whole new strategy for teams and mixed up the racing: choose it and you'll run faster for 30 laps, then pay the price. Said Daniel Suarez: "It was fun. It was like Mario Kart with a star."

Yellow: Bubba Wallace. Wallace has gotten his act together, posting back-to-back top-five finishes for the first time since the first two races of the year. But as he's jumped above the playoff cutline, the bubble keeps shrinking: upset wins by Alex Bowman and Dillon leave him with no margin for error.

Red: Martin Truex, Jr. A blown engine for Truex left him dead last at Richmond, now without a top-five fifinish since Kansas back in early May. Still winless in his final full-time season, is the late-summer nightmare of stumbling out of the playoffs, just like in 2022, about to happen all over again?   

Speeding Ticket: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Laps down and out of contention with just two laps remaining, what was Stenhouse thinking pushing the issue with Preece? After 398 laps of clean racing at Richmond, their contact changed the course of history.  

Oops!

As Dillon fell behind Logano during NASCAR Overtime, his radio chatter got aggressive during the final lap.

Childress was later played audio of the incident but denied anyone said Dillon should wreck people, claiming he "wasn't listening" to that part of the chatter.

"They would have done it to him, you know?" owner Childress said of Dillon's choice to crash his competitors. "It's one of those deals that when it comes down to winning a race and you're in that position, you're hungry, you do what it takes. That's what I told him all his life."

Later on, when told the radio chatter might be from the spotter, Brandon Benesch, Childress didn't budge.

"I didn't hear him," Childress said, "And I was on the radio with him. We'll see. If he did [say something], he did a damn good job at it. He won the race."