NASCAR president explained how Austin Dillon 'crossed the line' leading to Richmond penalty

Austin Dillon and Richard Childress Racing are still planning to make a final appeal to overturn NASCAR’s penalty against the No. 3 Chevrolet driver after their first attempt was denied Wednesday by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel.

Dillon, as you may recall, caused quite a bit of controversy a couple weeks ago at Richmond Raceway when, on the final overtime lap of the race, he first spun Joey Logano and then hooked Denny Hamlin to take the checkered flag.

NASCAR penalized Dillon and the team in a number of ways, including preventing the August 11 win from making Dillon eligible for the postseason, which a win normally automatically does. Should the final appeal be denied, Dillon would still need a win to make the playoffs.

NASCAR president Steve Phelps recently shared the governing body’s take on the wreck, the penalty and the future implications of both while talking to Kevin Harvick on the Happy Hour Podcast. The interview was recorded before the appeal was heard, according to Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass.

Phelps emphasized the need for safety as the sport evolves, but he also explained that it’s difficult to know and instruct drivers on where the line is between hard racing and unnecessary dangerous moves.

He told Harvick:

“I’ve heard from drivers over the years, ‘I don’t know where the line is. Tell me where the line is. Can you show me the line?’ I can’t show you the line, but you will know when it has been crossed, right? So if you hook someone to going 170 miles per hour on a mile-and-a-half track, you have crossed the line, and we’re going to park you. And so we’ve been consistent. We’ve had two of those. Do we want to do that? We don’t! But we need to make sure that we are keeping our drivers safe, and when you have a situation like that, it’s not safe.

“I think, as we were looking at, again, the data and what happened — it happened so quickly — but you had two incidents in a split-second right. Turn 3 had an incident. Turn 4, you had an incident, and then the race was concluded. I think the bump-and-run or slam-and-run or whatever it was, right — I won’t suggest that there wouldn’t have been a penalty. I have no idea, right? Because you had a second move, and the second move was a hook, in our opinion, right? Which was both the eye test as well as the data would suggest that’s what happened. It’s hard to hide from the data, right? And then he put a competitor also at risk, right? Denny took a hard hit, one of the hardest hits I think he’s had in this Next Gen car. And there was a line that was crossed, in our opinion.”

When Harvick brought up the possibility of NASCAR issuing penalties like this immediately after the race, Phelps said “it’s something we’ll explore,” including options of a one-lap penalty or a 15-second penalty for a driver and team.

But, as he also noted, unless it’s urgent or for safety, NASCAR doesn’t typically like to make rule changes mid-season.

The NASCAR president also looked ahead at the rest of the regular season — there are currently two races remaining at Daytona International Speedway and Darlington Raceway — and the 10-race playoffs. He speculated about what could have happened had NASCAR not penalized Dillon and the No. 3 team.

Phelps added:

“If we hadn’t penalized it, then I think what we would see over the next 12 weeks would look significantly different. And we just can’t have it. It really comes down to: What do you want your sport to be? And that’s why I think we ruled the way we did, because we’re not demolition derby. We’re just not. We are a sport that if we had done nothing, I think we would have opened ourselves up for a mess, honestly.”

Phelps is probably spot-on with that one.