Dale Earnhardt Jr. Says Austin Dillon “Crossed A Line” Wrecking Joey Logano & Denny Hamlin During Richmond Finish

Dale Jr. doesn’t think his dad would have done it that way.

Of course all the chatter after this past weekend’s race at Richmond Raceway has been about the controversial finish, with Austin Dillon going full bull in a china shop to win his first race since August 2022.

It was a fairly uneventful race, with the first caution not coming until 2 laps to go. Dillon, who came into the race sitting at 32nd in the points and needing a win to make the playoffs, was headed towards a major upset – until Ryan Preece and Ricky Stenhouse brought out the yellow flag and set up an overtime finish.

The field came down pit road, and Dillon managed to maintain the lead while Joey Logano came out 2nd and Denny Hamlin in 3rd.

On the final restart, Logano managed to get by the #3 car and looked to be on his way to keeping Richard Childress Racing out of victory lane.

But as they went into turn 3 on the final lap, Dillon decided to dive bomb Logano and put the bumper to him, sending the #22 spinning and opening the door for a drag race between Hamlin and Dillon for the victory.

Or so it seemed…

Dillon wasn’t going to be denied from winning his first race since August 2022, and hooked Hamlin in the right rear to also send the #11 car into the outside wall.

The end result was Dillon took the iconic #3 to victory lane – and pissed off Logano and Hamlin.

In his postrace interviews, the driver of the #22 Team Penske car had some harsh words for Dillon:

“It’s chickenshit, there’s no doubt about it. He’s four car lengths back, not even close, then he wrecks the 11 to go along with it. And 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 freakin’ close. Dude, I get it, bump and run, I get it. I didn’t back up the corner at all. He came in there and just drove through me. It’s ridiculous that that’s the way we race.

I get bump and runs. I do that. I would expect it. But from 4 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.”

He wasn’t done yet though:

“He’s a piece of crap. He sucks. He’s sucked his whole career, and now he’s going to be in the playoffs.”

And while Hamlin wasn’t quite as heated, he obviously felt the same way:

But it wasn’t just the drivers involved in the wild finish who were disgusted by how it all went down. Drivers like Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick all expressed their displeasure with Dillon’s move and what it means for the sport going forward.

Obviously drivers feel that it sets a bad precedent if NASCAR allows drivers to just right rear somebody into the wall for a win – not to mention the safety concerns if that happens at a bigger track.

With the exception of Richard Childress and his RCR employees, as well as the few Austin Dillon fans out there, everybody seemed to be in agreement that Dillon went too far.

And Dale Earnhardt Jr. agrees too.

On his podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, Junior discussed the events of Sunday – including audio that surfaced of Dillon’s spotter telling the driver to “wreck him” (talking about Hamlin) on his way to the checkered flag:

“NASCAR will react in some way, shape or form because of the spotter audio. And they should. They should.

Crew chiefs, spotters, should always get in trouble when they’re telling a driver to do something nefarious on the racetrack such as wrecking another opponent.”

But it wasn’t just Dillon and his RCR team who Dale Jr. believes was out of line: He also took issue with Logano’s behavior on pit road after the race, when he expressed his displeasure by revving his engine and doing a burnout in front of Dillon’s pit box while people – including NASCAR officials, crew, media members, and Dillon’s family and small child – were walking around:

Junior continued:

“There was a line crossed on the racetrack with the #3 car, certainly a line crossed in the spotter’s stand, and then a line crossed on pit road. So I mean a lot of lines got crossed.”

As far as penalties, Junior is expecting NASCAR to react to try to regain order in the sport:

“I would expect the #22, Joey Logano, a penalty for pit road. I’d expect something around the spotter audio. And I’m not sure what NASCAR could do or would do beyond that.

I think that it’s a very important moment for NASCAR. They cannot NOT deter this. That was too far.”

Obviously this takes on added meaning coming from Junior, whose father Dale Earnhardt used to drive the #3 car for RCR. After the race, some people claimed that Earnhardt would have done the same thing behind the wheel of the #3 car, and compared Dillon’s driving to the Intimidator. But apparently, Junior doesn’t agree.

“I don’t know if I saw dad ever clean two of ’em out in the last corner.”

We expect to hear word from NASCAR on penalties at some point today, so we should know soon whether he’s right.