Sunday night's Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway ended in controversy, as a chaotic overtime finish ended with Austin Dillon, the dominant car of the final 50 laps, spinning Joey Logano in the final turn before coming back down the track and turning Denny Hamlin into the wall, taking the victory as Hamlin and Logano were forced to question what could have been.
Dillon, who came into the race 32nd in points and needed a win to make the NASCAR Playoffs, seemingly locked up a playoff spot with the move. Immediately afterward, when interviewed on the front stretch, he was joined by his daughter and talked about how his win was a relief. He also seemed like he wasn't proud of his move but that he had done “what [he] had to do to cross the start/finish line first.”
Logano, meanwhile, was irate, and he made his point as he came down pit lane with his damaged car. He stopped in front of Dillon's pit box and did a burnout, almost hitting Dillon's wife, Whitney, several NASCAR officials, and some of Dillon's crew. After stopping his car, he got out and gave an interview, where he didn't waste any words describing Dillon and his move.
“It's chicken [expletive], there's no doubt about it,” said Logano. “He's four car lengths back. Not even close. Then he wrecks the 11 to go along with it, and then he's going to go up there and thank God and praise everything with his baby. It's a bunch of [expletive], it's not even freaking close.”
In a later interview, Logano continued to complain about Dillon, saying “[h]e's a piece of crap. He sucks. He's sucked his whole career.”
Hamlin, meanwhile, reserved his anger toward NASCAR’s championship format, specifically toward the idea that Dillon was even able to gain close to 20 positions in the points standings with a single win. He also touched on the fact that NASCAR's officiating can seem arbitrary and said that the officiating needs to be stronger and more consistent.
“I don't fault [Dillon] because he's completely desperate,” said Hamlin. “He's 30th in points, he jumps 20 spots in points or whatever the hell it is. His season's saved. Now, he'll have to pay repercussions down the line for this, you know, but it's so worth it from his standpoint, because there's no guardrails or rules that say ‘don't do that,’ and there's no one in the tower that has any problem with it. We're never, ever going to get taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating.”
Hamlin also mentioned that Layne Riggs was given a two-lap penalty at Nashville in the Truck Series race there earlier this season after intentionally wrecking Stefan Parsons, seemingly suggesting that Dillon should get a similar penalty. However, after being told that Dillon's crew had told him to wreck Hamlin as they came to the line, Hamlin added, "maybe they'll address it, but probably not.”
Dillon doubled down on Tuesday when he appeared on Kevin Harvick's “Harvick's Happy Hour” podcast. He admitted that he intentionally ran into Logano but that the contact with Hamlin was accidental.
[Editior's Note: Dillon saying he didn't wreck Hamlin intentionally was a shameless on the record lie. We've all seen the sensor data; he was caught in 4K]
After the controversial finish, the NASCAR fanbase had two trains of thought. One said that Dillon's win was legitimate and that NASCAR should allow his move, while the other said that Dillon needed to be used as an example.
As it turned out, NASCAR ended up taking a middle-ground, taking away Dillon's playoff eligibility on Wednesday and docking 25 points in both the drivers’ and owners’ standings, putting Dillon back to 31st in points but allowing Dillon to keep the win. NASCAR also suspended Dillon's spotter, Brandon Benesch, for the final three regular-season races after he told Dillon to “wreck” Denny Hamlin as they crossed the line. Logano was also fined $50,000 for his actions on pit road.
Dillon's penalty was a controversial one, though necessary. It seems as though Dillon's penalty centered more around his contact with Hamlin, as opposed to the contact with Logano. SMT Data confirmed that Dillon accelerated hard and turned left when Hamlin was alongside while Benesch was yelling for Dillon to wreck Hamlin. Matt Weaver also reported on Thursday that Hamlin's crash had the highest recorded G-force spike (32g) in the NextGen Car's short history.
While the penalty shouldn't consider the aftermath of Dillon's actions, it is impossible to consider Dillon's actions in a vacuum, especially considering the two drivers he wrecked. Hamlin and Logano are two of the most despised drivers among NASCAR's fans, and given that they have a penchant for wrecking other drivers for a win, fans were angry that Dillon got a penalty for something that the other two drivers seemingly do on a semi-regular basis. As such, compilations like the one embedded below made their way around social media, and they do seem to have a point.
However, neither has ever done anything as egregious to win a race as Dillon did. While Logano and Hamlin have certainly wrecked other drivers and made some dirty moves for wins, they didn't cross the line like Dillon did. The situation reminds me of Ross Chastain's “Hail Melon” at Martinsville in 2022. While Chastain didn't do anything outside the rules, NASCAR quickly illegalized any attempt like that again, as it would have become a safety issue. Several drivers, notably Carl Edwards at Kansas in 2008 and then Kyle Larson and Sheldon Creed at Darlington in 2021, had attempted to do what Chastain had at other tracks. Still, there wasn't an attempt to wallride that had been successful until Chastain's move.
Similarly, wrecking a driver for a win was mostly seen as a self-policing move and not something that needed to be penalized. For example, Logano spun Matt Kenseth at Kansas in 2015 for the win, and Kenseth retaliated two races later at Martinsville, intentionally taking Logano out of the championship. Of course, Kenseth was suspended two races for his move, but the other drivers had taken care of Logano's move.
However, a single win can save a driver's season with the current win-and-in system that the NASCAR Playoffs employ. NASCAR doesn't want drivers to become careless when racing for a win, so they needed to penalize Dillon. I wouldn't expect moves like Logano's on William Byron at Darlington in 2022 to be punished in the future. Still, it gives NASCAR a precedent that they can take away playoff eligibility for wins that were achieved unfairly.
For the record, I believe it was in NASCAR's best interest to penalize Dillon, and I also agree that Dillon's punishment fits the crime. However, lost in the controversial finish was the fact that Dillon was marching away to his fifth career win before Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece got together with two laps to go. The victory was Dillon's first that didn't occur in a fuel mileage finish or at a superspeedway, and before the overtime finish, it would have been viewed by many as his first “legitimate” win.
There is also a conversation about the driving standards that have recently seemed to go downhill at the end of races. Before this race, three of the last five races had finished in overtime, and the finish at Nashville was particularly egregious. Five overtimes were needed due to constant wrecks before Logano managed to win.
Regardless, NASCAR needs to work on certain things, starting with its championship format. However, they did manage to get Dillon's penalty right, no matter how polarizing the decision might have been.
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