RICHMOND, Va. — Austin Dillon raced to his first NASCAR Cup Series victory in nearly two years, sending Joey Logano into a spin on the final lap to win in overtime at Richmond on Sunday night.
It was Dillon’s first win since Aug. 28, 2022, at Daytona. He had just two top-10 finishes this year and entered the race ranked 32nd in the standings. Now he’s on track for the postseason — but he didn’t do it gently.
“I hate to do that, but sometimes you just got to have it,” Dillon said.
Dillon appeared to be cruising to a victory when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece collided, forcing the first caution of the entire 400-lap, 300-mile race aside from the prescheduled ones after the end of the first two stages.
So the drivers went to overtime, and Logano clearly got the better of Dillon on the restart. Then Dillon came up behind Logano and spun him — and when Denny Hamlin appeared to be moving past him on the inside, Dillon made contact with him too and sent him into the wall.
Dillon emerged from all that chaos with a victory in his No. 3 Chevrolet. That number was famously driven — often aggressively — by Dale Earnhardt. And that symmetry did not appear lost on seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who weighed in on social media.
“Dale Sr. vibes,” Johnson said.
Logano, unsurprisingly, was in no mood to shrug off Dillon’s move.
“It’s ridiculous that that’s the way we race. Unbelievable,” Logano said. “I get bump and runs. I do that. I would expect it. But from four 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 (expletive).”
The 11 — Hamlin — wasn’t pleased either.
“He’s going to be credited with the win, but obviously he’s just not going to go far,” Hamlin said. “You’ve got the pay your dues back on stuff like that. But it’s worth it, because they jump 20 positions in points. So I understand all that. There’s no ill will there. I get it. I just hate I was a part of it. It would have been fun if I was not one of the two guys that got taken out on the last corner.”
Dillon appeared on his way to a much less controversial victory after passing Hamlin for the lead with 29 laps to go. This was the first time in a points-paying Cup race that teams had multiple tire options. The “Option” tires were softer, giving drivers a speed boost but less longevity than the “Prime” tires. Teams had only two sets of Option tires for the race.
The Option tires helped Daniel Suárez to the lead early in the second stage, and he ultimately won that stage. After putting another set of Option tires on with about 40 laps remaining, Suárez began surging toward the front, but it appeared he would run out of laps before threatening Dillon.
But then the Stenhouse-Preece crash gave Dillon bigger problems to worry about. Now he has the victory — but at least two veteran drivers with an axe to grind.
