RICHMOND, Va. – By all indications, it seemed like Joey Logano had stolen one at Richmond Raceway. Gaining a spot on pit road, he got a better jump than leader Austin Dillon in NASCAR overtime and started driving away toward his second victory of the season.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Previously leading since lap 373, Dillon, who entered Sunday at 32nd in driver’s points, drove into turn three as deep as he possibly could, connecting with Logano on the bottom lane and sending him into the wall.
With as deep as he drove in, Dillon washed up toward the top of the track. Denny Hamlin took a peek on the bottom, but Dillon slid back down and right-reared him into the fence. It created enough of a gap that Dillon returned to the lead in time before NASCAR could throw the caution. He won for the fifth time in his career and secured the 13th spot in the 2024 playoffs.
Dillon had seemed destined for a win without the late-race chaos, but Ricky Stenhouse Jr. crashed in front of him with two laps to go to set up the overtime attempt.
Understandably, with how the final two laps panned out, Logano and Hamlin were less than pleased.
“Apparently, it’s OK,” Logano said after the race. “What do you want me to say? Apparently, he can come from five car lengths back and completely wreck someone and then wreck another one to the line and we’re gonna call that racing.
“When you get that far ahead that’s three to four car lengths ahead into [turn] three. I even backed up the entry. I was like, ‘I’ll just wrap the bottom here. I’m good.’ And he just drives in so hard. Obviously, he didn’t make the turn because he hit me and the 11 was gonna win the race, so he had no intention to race.
“I beat him fair and square on the restart and he just pulls a chicken shit move. He’s a piece of crap. He sucks. He’s sucked his whole career and now he’s gonna be in the playoffs.”
Should NASCAR consider taking the victory away?
“Yeah,” Logano said. “They won’t.”
Dillon has had a knack for timely victories in the past. Two years ago, he won at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway to score a spot in the playoffs after several cars crashed in the closing laps due to a rainstorm. In 2018, he won the Daytona 500, crashing Aric Almirola on the last lap for the victory.
His first career victory came in the 2017 Coca-Cola 600 — a fuel-milage marathon.
But don’t hate the player, hate the game, Hamlin says.
“It’s obviously foul. It’s fair in NASCAR. We’re just a different league,” Hamlin said. “There is no penalties for rough driving or anything like that. It opens up the opportunity for Austin to be able to just do whatever he wants.
“The record book won’t care, right, about what happened. He’s going to be credited with the win. Obviously he’s just not going to go far because you 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 understand it. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.”
Hamlin had a promising night going as he looked for back-to-back victories at his home track, leading a race-high 124 laps. He and teammate Christopher Bell were class of the field for the majority of the race before Bell took himself out of contention with a pit-road speeding penalty late.
A victory for Hamlin would’ve been his first since Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway in May and would’ve helped his effort toward tracking down Kyle Larson for the regular-season title.
“I just hate I was part of it. It would have been fun if I was not one of the two guys that got taken out in the last corner,” he said. “I mean, who am I to throw stones in a glass house? But I certainly never won one that way.”
Like it or not, Dillon did what he had to do to put his Richard Childress Racing team into the playoffs. And he doesn’t really care, either.
“It’s been two years. This is the first car I’ve had with a shot to win,” he said. “I felt like with two to go, we were the fastest car. Obviously had to have a straightaway. Wrecked the guy. I hate to do that, but sometimes you just got to have it.
“Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.”