Behind the scenes of the most controversial finish to a NASCAR race in a long time

As Austin Dillon climbed out of the legendary No. 3 and celebrated on the frontstretch at Richmond Raceway, Joey Logano simultaneously fumed by throttling up on pit road right in front of the jubilant Richard Childress Racing pit crew.

Denny Hamlin simply climbed out, watched the replay and just incredulously let out a laugh like he couldn’t believe it played out like that, a common sentiment in that moment, no doubt.

Logano was quickly swarmed by NASCAR officials who admonished him for breaking traction on a pit road suddenly occupied by every facet of industry notables.

Logano couldn’t believe he was the one getting the stern messaging and not the driver who transformed his car into a bowling ball with the intent of doing whatever it took to win and change the trajectory of an otherwise moribund season.

“When you get that far ahead — that’s three to four car lengths ahead into 3,” Logano said. “I didn’t even back 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 [Hamlin] was going to win the race.

“So, he had no intentions to race. I beat him fair and square on the restart, and he just pulls a chickenshit move. He’s a piece of crap. The kid, he sucks. He sucked his whole career, and now he’s going to be in the playoffs. Good for him, I guess.”

And that’s just it.

Dillon made his decisions based on the reality that he was 32nd in the championship standings entering the weekend and absolutely nothing short of a victory over the final four races of the regular season would advance him into the playoffs.

Thus, Dillon did not lift until he drove into the back of Logano, which allowed Hamlin to make a run that was also stalled with a right rear hook that ultimately decided one of the most controversial endings to a race in a very long time.

Hamlin expressed disappointment on several levels, from sporting integrity to the example allowing the results to stand would have on the next generation of drivers who are already emulating this sort of on-track behavior at the short track development level .

“Where’s the line,” Hamlin said. “We have rules to prevent ridiculous acts but it’s been a long time since rules have been enforced.

“I mean, Layne Riggs spun someone out and got a two lap penalty or some bullshit. It’s tough because this is what young short track racers see and think this is okay because they’re watching it from professionals on Sunday that are supposed to act like adults but do dumb shit.

“It’s just amazing to me. Wow. I don’t fault him because he’s (32nd) in points and now jumps 20 spots or whatever the hell it is. His season is saved.

“Now, he will have to pay repercussions down the line but its so worth it from his standpoint because there’s no guardrails to the rules that say ‘don’t do that.’ There is no one in the (scoring) tower that has a problem with it. So, we’ll never get taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating.”

Logano and Hamlin were both very adamant that NASCAR should strip the win away from Dillon.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Apparently, it’s okay. What do you want me to say? Apparently, you can come from five car lengths back and completely wreck someone and then wreck another one to the line, and we’re going to call that racing. Cool.”

Then he was asked point blank, should NASCAR take away the win.

“Yeah [but] they won’t,” he said. “It’s ridiculous, and you can’t stand for it. I can tell you that much. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. Obviously, I got to think about it, but you can’t let shit like that happen.”

Hamlin again defaulted to the Riggs penalty.

“Two laps for spinning someone out in the Truck race,” Hamlin said. “That’s the penalty unless I guess there is no penalty. … It’s crazy to think that this is where we are right now as a sport but I guess I’ll just bitch and complain about it for my final years and nothing will ever get done about it.”

The justification

It’s important to note that Dillon legitimately and naturally had the race won, having passed a dominant Hamlin over a long green flag run and was pulling away at the time of the final caution with two laps to go for an incident involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece.

Dillon won the ensuing race off pit road but got beat on the restart and felt like he had only one recourse available ….

“I mean, I was just trying to get to him,” Dillon said of Logano. “I went into turn three in fifth gear, and drove in, tried to get in loose, got him up the track. I got the car downshifted, and the car actually turned pretty good when I did that. When I was coming back left, (Hamlin) was coming. That was just kind of a reaction.

“I was trying get (Logano) loose, but (Hamlin) was more of just a reaction. I wasn’t lifting at that point because I was more looking at where (Logano) was. When (Hamlin) came across, it was just reaction.”

This was the best car he has had all season … and arguably the only good car he has had this year amidst a career worst campaign that recently featured a crew chief change and the departure of Andy Petree as the company competition director.

“I feel like we were the best car on the yellow tire,” Dillon said. “That’s what got us able to get to the front. I mean, we were the best car when it got dark on the yellow tire. That’s point-blank what it was.

“I passed Joey and (Hamlin) clean and drove a straightaway away. Then with two to go, lap cars wrecked. On the red tire I’d say we were probably a fourth- or fifth-place car. A little too tight to take off.

“It was a situation where we had a shot to go to Victory Lane and change our whole entire season.”

And to that point, Dillon went from a season-long also-ran to a driver that will have a chance to compete for a championship come September, thanks to NASCAR’s decade-old win and you advance playoff format.

His grandfather, team owner Richard Childress summed it all up, when it comes to the ethics involved with what happened.

“We’re in the (playoffs,)” Childress said. “I don’t know where you’re trying to draw the line.”

The radio chatter

Following the race, audio circulated of Dillon’s spotter Brandon Benesch yelling over the radio for Dillon to wreck Hamlin after spinning Logano.

In real time, during his own press conference, Childress said he didn’t think that audio was real nor had he heard it in his headset.

“I didn’t say that,” Childress said. “I didn’t hear anyone say it and I was on the radio. Did you?”

That last line was to crew chief Justin Alexander.

“No, I didn’t.”

And then Childress, again:

“I don’t think anyone said that, no.”

Except, there is audio proof.

When Sportsnaut made Childress aware of the audio, he was still adamant it was not real.

“Not on our No. 1 channel, No. 2 channel, no one said that,” Childress said. “If you believe in everything you hear on the Internet, I’m not Santa Claus if it ever comes up. Probably somebody just saying it, put it in there.”

Basically, he said the recording was fake news.

“I didn’t hear him, and I was on the radio with him,” Childress said. “We’ll see. If he did, he did a damn good job at it. He won the race.”

Childress came over to listen to the audio, and when confronted with its authenticity, doubled down on the sentiment that it worked and earned his grandson a playoff spot.

“Well, if he did, he did a good job, we’re in the playoffs.”

Consequences?

So how about the sanctioning body’s response after all that?

Hamlin and Logano have both called for the win to be stripped away and started a conversation about overall racing ethics at the highest level and it fell on senior vice president of competition to explain why Dillon was confirmed the winner after a nearly two-minute deliberation.

“Our sport has been a contact sport for a long time,” Sawyer said. “You always hear, ‘Where’s the line, did someone cross the line?’ I would say the last lap was awful close to the line, we’ll take a look at all of the available resources from audio to video, listen to spotters, we’ll listen to crew chiefs and drivers and if anything rises to a level that we feel like we need to penalize then we’ll do that on Tuesday.”

So it’s not case closed yet, even if it’s hard to see NASCAR disqualifying the winner two days after the fact, but the radio communication is pretty egregious by any standard.

“We’ll look at all of the available resources, look at audio, look at video, look at SMT Data as we normally do in a situation like this and make a determination on Tuesday,” Sawyer said.

But by his own admission, this is just not something NASCAR typically does, overturn wins for something other than inspection related matters.

“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, we’d have to look at it,” he said.

This back and forth came after both Hamlin and Logano spent time in the NASCAR Cup Series command hauler making their feelings known to Sawyer as well.

“There’s nothing coming right now,” Hamlin said after leaving the hauler. “They’re going to look at things. I’d encourage you guys (in the media) to talk to them. I don’t want to share what we discussed privately.”

So again, would Hamlin like to see Dillon disqualified?

“I don’t know,” Hamlin said. “I was the first guy to get disqualified in 63 years for a sticker on our car so I’m probably the wrong person to ask.”

Sawyer will also take a look at Logano burning out on pit road in front of the No. 3 stall to determine in any safety related punitive actions need to be applied.

“We don’t want to make a split second decision and get that wrong,” Sawyer said. “So we want to go back and look at everything that happened on the last lap and see if any penalties need to be issued.”

But that doesn’t mean Dillon wouldn’t receive some sort of punishment from the likes of Hamlin or Logano at some point. They both insinuated it after the race, of course, but Childress issued a counter-warning to the perceived threat too.

“Just prepare yourself is all I can say,” Childress said. “It’s a two-way street. If you kick a dog, he might bite you, but you might get bit again yourself.”

Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter .

More must-reads:

• Austin Dillon scores shock NASCAR win after crashing Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin at Richmond
• NASCAR schedule: Races today, races this weekend, NASCAR starting lineup for Sunday
• Denny Hamlin scores pole for NASCAR Cup race at Richmond