RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Desperate to win for the first time in nearly two years — and with the race suddenly slipping away — Austin Dillon sent two cars into the wall in rapid succession.
The result was a season-changing victory, an avalanche of controversy and at least two veteran drivers who were absolutely furious.
“I hate to do that, but sometimes you just got to have it,” Dillon said.
Dillon raced and bumped his way to victory Sunday night, sending Joey Logano into a spin on the final lap to win in overtime at Richmond. It was his first win since Aug. 28, 2022, at Daytona. He had just two top-10 finishes this year and entered the race ranked 32nd in the standings. Now he’s on track for the playoffs — but he didn’t get there gently.
Dillon appeared to be cruising to a victory when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece collided, forcing the first caution of the entire 400-lap, 300-mile race aside from the prescheduled ones after the ends of the first two stages.
So the drivers went to overtime, and Logano clearly got the better of Dillon on the restart. Then Dillon came up directly behind Logano and spun him.
“It’s ridiculous that that’s the way we race. Unbelievable,” Logano said. “I get bump and runs. I do that. I would expect it. But from four car lengths back, he was never going to make the corner. And then he wrecks the other car. He wrecks the 11 to go with it. What a piece of crap.”
The 11 was Denny Hamlin, who appeared to be moving past Dillon on the inside after Dillon bumped Logano’s No. 22 car. Then Dillon hit the back right part of Hamlin’s car and put him into the wall, too.
“He’s going to be credited with the win, but obviously he’s just not going to go far,” Hamlin said. “You’ve got to pay your dues back on stuff like that. But it’s worth it, because they jump 20 positions in points. So I understand all that. There’s no ill will there. I get it. I just hate I was a part of it. It would have been fun if I was not one of the two guys that got taken out on the last corner.”
Dillon emerged from all the chaos with a victory in his No. 3 Chevrolet. That number was famously driven — often aggressively — by Dale Earnhardt. But times have changed since Earnhardt’s heyday, and Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, made it clear the end of this race would be looked at.
“In my view, that’s getting really close to crossing the line,” Sawyer said.
Actually vacating the victory, however, would be an extraordinary step.
“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,” Sawyer said. “We’d have to look at it.”
Dillon appeared on his way to a much less controversial win after passing Hamlin for the lead with 29 laps to go. But then the Stenhouse-Preece crash and subsequent restart left Dillon in danger of an agonizing defeat.
Dillon said he was trying to move Logano’s car, but hitting Hamlin as well was more of an instant reaction.
“I’ve seen Denny and Joey make moves that have been running people up the track to win,” Dillon said. “This was the first opportunity in two years for me to be able to get a win. ... I’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years in NASCAR where people move people, and it’s just part of our sport.”
Owner Richard Childress, Dillon’s grandfather, expressed a similar sentiment. Childress was also asked about possible audio of Dillon being told to wreck another driver during the frantic finish.
“I didn’t hear him, and I was on the radio with him. We’ll see,” Childress said. “If he did, he did a damn good job at it. He won the race.”
Hamlin finished second, followed by Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain. Dillon’s victory was not good news for Wallace and the other drivers on the playoff bubble.
“Nice to walk out of here with a top-five finish,” Wallace said. “We have a long way to go. We just have to keep fighting. I guess you can dump somebody and right rear somebody and be OK. It’s funny how that works.”
Christopher Bell won the first stage, but he was later penalized for speeding on pit road and finished sixth. Daniel Suárez won the second stage.
Martin Truex Jr. was knocked from the race by engine trouble early in the final stage. He remains the top winless driver in the standings.
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AP NASCAR: https://apnews.com/hub/nascar-racing
