NASCAR should draw a line after Austin Dillon's move (2024)

Five thoughts after Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway …

1. Taking Stock

After Ross Chastain’s Hail Melon in 2022, NASCAR officials decided such a move should be banned. No one could ever win a race again by intentionally wall-riding to pass other cars.

The same logic should be applied to a major element of Austin Dillon’s controversial victory Sunday at Richmond Raceway.

Before we go any further, let’s make this clear: NASCAR is a contact sport, a form of racing where beatin’ and bangin’ is accepted and endorsed. Officials love the physicality stock cars provide, and it’s one of the hallmarks of NASCAR racing. That should never change.

But there’s a major difference between bumping and outright wrecking. Or at least there should be.

The problem is Sunday’s finish at Richmond showed NASCAR officially has crossed into “anything goes” territory when it comes to deciding a win. Dillon being allowed to not just make contact but blatantly wreck two cars ahead of him on the last lap shows there’s no limit to what drivers can do to win.

While it might get attention on “SportsCenter,” lawless racing is too far for a professional racing series considered one of the top forms of international motorsport.

We’re not faulting Dillon; he did what he had to do under the existing rules. He purposefully drove into the corner deep enough to crash Joey Logano, then crashed Denny Hamlin moments later when Hamlin was about to win the race instead.

Sportsmanlike? No. Legal? Yes. Dillon shouldn’t care if other drivers are mad at him for dirty racing because he won in a way that NASCAR has incentivized. The playoff system is built around a win-and-in format (along with win-to-advance playoff rounds and a winner-take-all championship race), making such desperate moments implicitly encouraged and cheered.

But there must be a line somewhere, and Sunday should have crossed it. If NASCAR is willing to give Truck Series driver Layne Riggs a two-lap “rough driving” penalty for a far less egregious offense than what we saw from Dillon, the same logic should have been applied.

Now that it wasn’t, where does that leave NASCAR? It missed a chance to make a statement in the moment, and now a midweek penalty doesn’t seem to be a viable option. So the solution is to implement a policy change.

How would officials decide if a rough driving penalty is warranted? Well, that’s a judgment call — but one they’re paid to make.

The definition of p*rnography was once labeled by a Supreme Court justice as “I know it when I see it.” The same should apply to blatant contact that determines a victory.

Bump and run? Perfectly OK. Hard racing for the win that results in contact? No problem. There isn’t a NASCAR-loving soul who would advocate otherwise.

But purposefully crashing the leader with no intent to race for the win is embarrassing and amateurish. The drivers in NASCAR are better than that and deserve to be viewed with more respect. So NASCAR has to step in to enforce some minimum standards before the type of move we saw Sunday becomes the norm.

2. Fastest Car Tracker

Christopher Bell’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, was unable to travel to Richmond after he ruptured the patellar tendon in both knees while jumping on a diving board during the Olympic break. But apparently working from afar instead of being at the racetrack doesn’t affect the speed of the No. 20 car, because Bell was blazing fast yet again.

With Stevens in Joe Gibbs Racing’s North Carolina war room for the race, car chief Chris Sherwood would have been credited as the winning crew chief had Bell won, which seemed like a very real possibility until a pit road speeding penalty.

Bell finished sixth anyway, as he had done in the spring Richmond race (after another speeding penalty). But Bell’s speed on the type of tracks that matter in the playoffs is increasingly making him a standout for a potential championship run. He won Phoenix and New Hampshire, was going to win Gateway if not for engine woes and could have won at Richmond. And Stevens has provided Bell with fast cars more times than any other driver this season.

Bell may only be sixth in the points standings, but there’s a solid argument for him being the championship favorite with three races to go in the regular season.

Fastest Car Score: Other Cars 14, Fastest Cars 11.

Fastest Cars by Driver: Bell 6, Hamlin 4, Kyle Larson 4, Tyler Reddick 2, William Byron 2, Logano 2, Michael McDowell 1, Martin Truex Jr. 1, Todd Gilliland 1, Ty Gibbs 1, Shane van Gisbergen 1.

3. Q&A

Each week in this space, we’ll pose one question and attempt to answer one from the past.

Q: What did Sunday mean for the future of tires in NASCAR?

Unfortunately, I’ve been around long enough that the promise of race-altering technical changes often brings skepticism and occasionally outright cynicism. When you repeatedly get told through the years that some upcoming adjustment or innovation (rules packages, engines, tires, etc.) will make a huge difference in the racing — and then it barely seems to do anything — it’s hard to keep the faith.

But what we saw with Goodyear’s option tire at Richmond truly delivered, and there should be an industry-wide burst of optimism on what it means for the future.

It was borderline jaw-dropping to see Daniel Suarez and McDowell streak through the field at the start of Stage 2 by using their alternate set of tires. There was a true speed difference, followed by an eventual dropoff in lap time, that injected a new element of strategy into the race.

Had Richmond seen more cautions, it would have been even more compelling. But Suarez at the end of the race still had a shot on his alternate strategy, which made it fun to watch and see if he could track down Dillon before the overtime-triggering caution.

A similar concept with these tires could now be used for every short track, plus the one-mile ovals like Phoenix and New Hampshire, as well as road courses. Imagine a late caution in next year’s championship race at Phoenix where a contender bolts on a saved set of alternate tires and streaks to the front to win the title. Or envision someone advancing to the Championship 4 from the Martinsville elimination race in a similar way.

This seems like only the beginning, which makes the future of multiple tire compounds in NASCAR seem incredibly bright.

A: What should be done with Richmond?

That was the question asked in this space after last summer’s ho-hum Richmond race, which was typical of so many events there. If not for the option tire, Sunday’s race probably would have fallen into that category as well.

Except by now, the question of “what should be done?” is largely irrelevant. The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi has reported Richmond is expected to lose one of its dates next season, replaced by whatever international race NASCAR can secure (Mexico City being the leading contender).

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Richmond was once the “Action Track” with a high number of yellow flags that were indicative of its moniker.

Get this: From 1998-2010, Richmond had 25 straight races with at least six cautions (and often many more, as evidenced by 14 of those races having double-digit yellows).

But there have now been 11 times in the last 12 races where Richmond never reached the six-caution mark — and this is in an era with two freebie cautions per race for the stage breaks.

So the reduction in action has been notable, with Richmond now the “Strategy Track,” if anything. And that’s fine, but strategy certainly doesn’t sell tickets like action used to.

4. NASquirks

In Year 11 of this win-and-in playoff format, we all know how it works: Get a victory any time in the first 26 races, and you’re in the 16-driver field. Except since the start of last year, one important qualifier has been removed: that drivers must also be in the top 30 of the regular-season point standings to have their win count for the playoffs.

That’s important because before Sunday, Dillon was 32nd in the point standings out of 34 full-time drivers. His victory moved him to 26th, but only 21 points clear of 31st place.

Regardless of the top 30 rule, the unusual circ*mstance of a driver so far down in the standings suddenly making the playoffs will never not be weird. Dillon hadn’t led a single lap all season before Richmond and only finished in the top 10 twice in 2024 — and then he won the race, which vaulted him ahead of the 13th-place driver in the standings (the cut line is now up to 12th place). Wild!

Now, with three more regular-season races (including Daytona, which comes with the likelihood of another out-of-nowhere winner), even the 11th-place driver in points (Gibbs) is suddenly sweating his playoff berth.

We’ve seen even more glaring examples before, like when Martin Truex Jr. missed the playoffs in 2022 despite being fourth in the standings. And yet, as strange as it is, those are the rules of the game as everyone understands them. And it underscores exactly why Dillon was willing to make such over-the-top moves to win on Sunday.

5. Five at No. 5

Our mini power rankings after Race No. 25/38 (including exhibitions):

1. Tyler Reddick (last time: 1): With a third-place finish at Richmond, Reddick already has matched his career highs in top-fives and top-10s for a season. Oh, and there are still 13 races to go.

2. Denny Hamlin (last time: 4): Another top-three car (and a potential win if he hadn’t been taken out at the finish).

3. Ryan Blaney (last time: 3): A bad pit stop derailed what would have otherwise been a top-10 run, and the team still had solid speed despite an 11th-place result.

4. Kyle Larson (last time: 2): After winning his third Knoxville Nationals on Saturday night, Larson quietly led Hendrick Motorsports with a seventh-place finish on a weekend where the organization didn’t seem to have its typical pace.

5. Christopher Bell (last time: not ranked): Bell’s aforementioned speed in Item No. 2 above makes him a title threat, even through inconsistent finishes.

Dropped out: Chase Elliott.

(Top photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

Jeff Gluck has been traveling on the NASCAR beat since 2007, with stops along the way at USA Today, SB Nation, NASCAR Scene magazine and a Patreon-funded site, JeffGluck.com. He's been hosting tweetups at NASCAR tracks around the country since 2009 and was named to SI's Twitter 100 (the top 100 Twitter accounts in sports) for five straight years.