NASCAR revokes playoff berth for Austin Dillon

CONCORD, N.C. — NASCAR announced Wednesday that Austin Dillon’s win Sunday night at Richmond Raceway will not get him into the playoffs.

The sanctioning body also docked 25 points from Dillon and from the No. 3 team. They also suspended spotter Brandon Benesch for the next three races.

Entering turn three on the final lap of the Cook Out 400, Dillon bumped Joey Logano, turning him into the wall. As Dillon regrouped, he and Denny Hamlin got together, causing Hamlin to get into the wall while Dillon went to victory lane. The win vaulted Dillon from 32nd in points to a playoff spot.

Over the radio, Benesch was heard saying “Wreck him” as the incident with Hamlin happened. SMT data reportedly showed Dillon cutting the steering wheel toward Hamlin during the incident.

According to NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer, all of that was taken into consideration over the course of three days until they finally arrived at their decision Wednesday.

“If you take the total body of work, if you will, starting in turn three with the 3 car [Dillon] and the 22 [Logano] as it progressed with the 3 and the 11 [Hamlin], we took that in totality. The number one thing is, we are protecting the integrity of our playoffs and the championship. We want to make sure our competitors understand they make all the decisions and race hard. But we also want them to understand, and I believe they understand, that this crossed a line,” Sawyer said.

The decision draws a line in the sand where many believed it had gotten murky in recent years. Sawyer, a former driver, himself, said the decision meets the expectations that drivers have for each other.

“I believe if you walk through the garage and you look at those guys, they know where the line is. I promise you, as a racecar driver, they know, and I knew, where the line was. Hard NASCAR racing is a little bump, a little tire mark, move a guy out of the groove. What happened Sunday night crossed a line,” he said.

Sawyer said they considered stripping the win from Dillon but that it wasn’t appropriate within the parameters of the rulebook.

That could change, however.

“At the moment, we did consider [stripping the win.] But at the moment there isn’t a mechanism in the rulebook for that. We will look at that in the future,” he said. “We will get to a place where this is more on the spot. We just wanted to get this right. And to make a split decision that would be wrong, would not be right.”

Dillon’s wreck with Hamlin involved a right-rear hook – something that Chase Elliott was suspended for last year and Bubba Wallace was suspended for the year before. While they didn’t suspend Dillon, they did take it into consideration.

“We looked at the situations we had with Bubba and Chase,” Sawyer said. “[But] we felt like the penalty we issued, basically taking the eligibility of using that win, we felt like we didn’t need to add the suspension to it,” Sawyer said.

The integrity of the sport, he said, was paramount to their decision.

“We encourage hard racing and contact is in our DNA for 75-plus years. But what happened Sunday night, in NASCAR’s view, looking at all the data and talking about it, it crossed the line. That’s not the way we want our races to end. That’s not the way we want to decide a champion or an event. We’ve had races this year where drivers have made contact and won a race. We don’t want to officiate every piece of contact that happens but this particular case crossed a line,” he said.

Richard Childress Racing stated they will appeal the penalty

“Richard Childress Racing is very disappointed in NASCAR’s penalty against the No. 3 team. We do not agree with the decision that was made and plan to appeal.”

If the appeal is successful, Dillon will make the playoffs and start with five playoff points. If it isn’t, Dillon could still make the playoffs with a win in one of the next three races. However, those playoff points from Richmond wouldn’t carry over.

With the 25-point penalty, Dillon drops back to 31st in points. The playoff cutline also looks like this now:

13. Martin Truex Jr. 662 points (+81 points to the cutline; was +78)
14. Ty Gibbs 602 (+21; was +18)
15. Bubba Wallace 587 (+3)
16. Chris Buescher 584 (–)
17. Ross Chastain 584 (–)
18. Chase Briscoe 485 (-99; was -102)
19. Kyle Busch 465 (-119; was -122)

Buescher would win the tiebreaker with Chastain. Buescher has two second-place finishes while Chastain’s best finish is fourth.

MORE: Controversial win locks Austin Dillon into the playoffs