In a year where we've seen NASCAR Race Control take an insane amount of deserved heat, even by their standards, last night's Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway was perhaps their Mona Lisa performance. After blowing a GWC restart from the lead, we saw Richard Childress Racing's Austin Dillon take out multiple cars in the final two corners of the race, the first being dumping Joey Logano in turn three despite being multiple car lengths back entering the corner. Then, after wrecking the No. 22 Shell Ford Mustang, he worked back down turn four to right-hook Denny Hamlin into the outside wall, coming to the finish to claim his first win in nearly two seasons.
Of course, race control took no action since the only consistent thing about them over the last twenty-plus years has been their inconsistency and the cavalcade of bad calls on their behalf. In fact, unless NASCAR turns coat and does the right thing, Dillon, who was on pace for a career-worst season in nearly every category coming into this weekend, is now playoff-bound, where he will almost certainly be a one-and-done, having only made it out of the Round of 16 twice in 10 seasons.
Now, people across NASCAR Twitter were well within their rights to call this a case of the pot meeting the kettle, but both Logano and Hamlin were justifiably furious over how things ended.
The Standard is There's No Standard
This is just a quick hypothetical for the boys up in race control. Let's say Hamlin intentionally hooks Dillon in the right rear at Michigan next weekend. Is that fair game? Because based on Sunday night, the answer is yes. And at that point, why do we have a sanctioning body? Just think of the extra money they can save by not paying race control since they've already been robbing teams blind for years with the current revenue split agreement.
Not to mention either, the sad thing is they'll ultimately call things the right way in said event given 1) It's Michigan and not Richmond, and 2) Based on close to my entire life, the people in race control care about covering their own asses more than doing their jobs correctly. And the fact that they'll hold off any decisions until Tuesday when there was a mountain of evidence not even two hours after the checkered flag dropped last night is insanity. Most prominently, Richard Childress was already getting caught in lies when he walked into the press center.
Much to my surprise, they did the right thing when it came time to punish NASCAR's golden boy Chase Elliott last year when he hooked Hamlin, but now, Pandora's Box is WIDE open once again. And for all the talk about how "this is what NASCAR has created with this playoff format," how did we end up getting the finishes we did at Atlanta, Kansas, Texas, and Nashville, among some other races, earlier this year with a grand total of zero cars going for the win getting junked? This is far more about Dillon being mediocre (he's a sub-top 20 driver on average finish over his last 50-plus races; it's irrefutable) than the playoff system.
Actions have consequences, and in my mind, if NASCAR now decides to take zero action with an extra 48 hours to look things over, anything that happens next week or down the line is entirely on them. But hey, if they want to turn the top rung of stock car racing into a complete joke like it's a Bowman Grey series, more power to them.
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