NASCAR mayhem at Richmond as Austin Dillon takes checkers but ...

For much of Sunday evening, NASCAR onlookers were likely texting with each other and it went something like this …“Can you believe Austin Dillon?”

That’s because Dillon, barely an afterthought for two seasons now, wasn’t just competitive at Richmond, but was in or near the lead as the laps began winding down. 

By night’s end, the texts among NASCAR friends went something like this …

“Can you believe Austin Dillon?”

Same text, perhaps just minutes apart, but with entirely different meanings.

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Let’s go through the gears to examine this hullabaloo, figure out what it does to the big picture, and eventually play a little catch-up on what we might’ve missed during that two-week Olympic shutdown.

VOTE NASCAR POLL: Was Austin Dillon's 'winning move' OK or closer to what Joey Logano said?

First Gear: Denny Hamlin had a gift snapped away too

“Plausible deniability” is what the politicians call it. No matter how obviously underhanded the deed, insert some level of justification, or even some level of ignorance of the law, to at least get your supporters to stick by your side, however much they may be rolling their eyes.

Austin Dillon not only offered nothing plausible Sunday night, he didn’t even attempt to deny. He carried a ton of speed into Turn 3 of the final lap, while trying to catch leader Joey Logano, essentially knowing the eventual outcome.

Bye-bye Joey, up the track toward the outside fence. Only problem was, the punt also dramatically slowed Dillon’s roll, and third-place Denny Hamlin was now zipping by on the inside for the win. 

Until, guess who, Dillon again, this time darting to his left just in time to catch Hamlin’s right-rear corner, spinning the No. 11 Toyota and allowing Dillon to motor his No. 3 Chevy to the checkers. 

If this was rasslin’, a comparison many folks like to make, this was Dillon throwing the referee out of the ring, hitting his opponent over the head with a chair, and throwing himself across the opponent’s chest for the three-count.

And then offering little remorse.

“I don’t know man, it’s been two years and this is the first car I’ve had a shot to win with,” he told the postrace audience. “Wrecked the guy. I hate to do that, but sometimes you just gotta do it.”

That’s racin’? That’s debatable, as you’ll see below.

Second Gear: Joey Logano says don't confuse BS with CS

How hot was Logano? Drivers are famous for airing grievances in a rather personal way after such things. So we expected as much from Joey, and we got as much from Joey, but right about now we should try educating the masses about the technicalities of it all.

First, Joey’s reaction: "I beat him fair and square on the restart and he just pulls a chicken$#!+ move.”

You see, out here in the real world and not inside the think-tanks and cocktails parties, there’s a real difference between BS and CS. BS, of course, comes from a bull, while CS comes from a chicken.

Conniving in a manner to defeat someone can rightly be labeled BS. What Dillon did, which didn’t require any plotting or, frankly, much technical skill — just flagrant flailing, in a way — is what we call CS.

Of course, Joey followed another long-held racing tradition and made it personal.

“He sucks, he's sucked his whole career and now he's gonna be in the playoffs, and good for him.”

Hamlin, Victim No. 2 in this affair, leaned more toward the voice of reason, calling the line Dillon crossed an invisible boundary. At least in the manner these things are policed by NASCAR.

“We’re never going to be taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating,” Hamlin said. 

Well, we’ll see. NASCAR reserves the right to study these things further, and we’ll hear from them Tuesday. The guess here is, a penalty of some sort will come for Dillon, but the win will stick and so will his playoff ticket.

But as for the immediate non-reaction Sunday from the Boys in the Booth, NASCAR’s competition chief Elton Sawyer seemed to suggest Dillon’s move didn’t exactly pass the smell test with flying colors.

“It happened fast,” Sawyer said. “But I would say, if you look at that, in my view that’s getting right up really close to crossing the line.”

Third Gear: That's Bubba Wallace death-gripping a playoff ticket

Let’s see how the playoff picture looks now that the dust has cleared … oh, wait, first let’s revisit the scene just to remind everyone how the stage was set for Dillon’s mayhem.

With two laps left, Dillon had led 32 of the previous 65 laps and was comfortably ahead by 3+ seconds, cruising to victory, when the night’s first accident struck on Lap 399. This gets brushed away by all that followed, but Ryan Preece came down across the nose of Ricky Stenhouse’s car as they prepared to enter Turn 1. 

Either that or Stenhouse gave Preece no room and jammed his left-rear to start the wreck.

Whichever, it wasn’t a good look. No mirror? No spotter? No grip? How does that happen? 

Anyway, with Dillon’s win, we now have 13 drivers with a regular-season win and the automatic playoff entry that comes with it. Three races remain, and theoretically three other new 2024 winners could fill out the playoff field with 16 winners.

Won’t happen, most likely, and as many as three drivers will make the playoffs on points. Right now those three are Martin Truex Jr., Ty Gibbs and Bubba Wallace, who is just three points ahead of Ross Chastain and Chris Buescher — Chastain and Buescher are way, way ahead of the rest, so there’s your points race, right there.

However, along with Michigan and Darlington over the next three weeks, there’s Daytona, where anyone can win and what we would’ve thought was the only hope for someone like Dillon. 

Fourth Gear: New date for the Daytona 500?

Maybe you completely tuned out over the past two weeks while NBC was covering Snoop Dogg and mixing in some Olympic competition. Here’s a quick rundown of some headlines that might’ve slipped through the cracks on you:

∎ Connor Zilisch, who just turned 18 and can’t stop winning at all levels and in all forms of racing, signed a deal to drive for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Xfinity Series team next year.

∎ Bristol Motor Speedway will clear out its infield next summer, lay out a ballfield and host an MLB game between the Braves and Reds — Aug. 2 is the date. They’ve done football there, so it’s not a totally new concept. 

∎ Daniel Suarez and Trackhouse Racing agreed to a contract extension.

∎ The 2025 NASCAR schedule is still a work in progress, but rumors about Montreal, Mexico City, or maybe both are still out there.

∎ The NFL is officially chatting with the Players Association about adding and 18th game to the schedule and pushing the Super Bowl back one week, to President’s Day Weekend. That would give partiers the Monday holiday to fully recover. It would also put the Super Bowl on the same Sunday as stock-car racing’s Super Bowl, the Daytona 500. Except the 500 would change dates, as it has before for other reasons.

∎ Tyler Reddick and Alexa DeLeon got married.

∎ Spire Motorsports and Corey LaJoie got divorced, effective at year’s end.