NASCAR driver wrecks rival to win

With the NASCAR Playoffs quickly approaching, drivers on the outside looking in are willing to do almost anything to win a race and earn their spot in the postseason. And while NASCAR is the world’s most lenient series when it comes to drivers wrecking each other to take the checkered flag, hardly anybody has taken it as far as Austin Dillon did Sunday night in Richmond.

Dillon, sitting well outside the playoff cut-off, knew he needed a victory to qualify for the postseason. And after leading late, a caution with under 2 laps to go put his winning chances in doubt. After being beaten on the restart cleanly by Joey Logano, his hopes were fading fast. So what did Dillon do? Heading into turn 3, he plowed straight into Logano.

Incredibly, Dillon didn’t stop there. After being passed by Denny Hamlin he also hooked the #11 car into the fence to cross the finish line first in one of the wildest (and most controversial) finishes in NASCAR history.

Dillon didn’t shy away from his tactics in his post-race victory interview and he likely knows that payback from both Hamlin and Logano is coming. When Logano was asked on pit road in the post-race interview, he let his uncensored feelings be known.

“It was chickens**t, there’s no doubt about it,” Logano said. “He’s four car lengths back, not even close, then he wrecks the 11 to go along with it. Then he’s going to go up there and thank God and praise everything with his baby, it’s a bunch of BS, it’s not even freaking close.”

Logano continued to rant against Dillon and NASCAR when talking to more assembled media, calling out Dillon for his lack of talent and needing to wreck him and Hamlin both to win a race.

“He just pulls a chickens**t move. He’s a piece of crap. He sucks. He’s sucked his whole career,” Logano said.

For his part, Hamlin seemed a little less fired up in his initial NBC post-race interview, taking an “it is what it is” approach. But in comments to Fox’s Bob Pockrass, Hamlin questioned why NASCAR didn’t take any action on such an obvious double punt.

“This is what the young short track racers see and they think this is ok because they watch the professionals on Sunday that are supposed to act like adults just do dumb s*** and it’s amazing that it’s allowed,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin and Logano are never going to win NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver of the Year, mostly because they’ve had plenty of run-ins of their own over the years. Logano even admitted to NBC he would have understood Austin Dillon doing a “bump and run” within reason. But while some NASCAR fans may think it’s a bit of karma coming around to Logano and Hamlin, Dillon’s reckless abandon had to cross some sort of line, whether it’s visible or not.

One thing’s for sure though, the Richmond race and the Dillon-Logano-Hamlin fallout are going to create a lot of interest in what’s going to happen when the NASCAR playoffs begin. And maybe that’s what the racing league cares about most.

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