Austin Dillon could soon receive a penalty from NASCAR not because he collided with Joey Logano on the final lap of Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, but because he intentionally pushed Denny Hamlin into the wall as the two approached the start-finish line, Jeff Gluck of The athlete said on “The Teardown” podcast.
The key word here is “could,” because Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said the sanctioning committee will make a decision on Tuesday. Gluck, however, does not believe NASCAR will suspend Dillon. Gluck predicted NASCAR will avoid coming down too hard on Dillon because Dillon’s right hook on Hamlin was not retaliation.
“We’ve been told that for a right-rear hook you get a suspension,” Gluck said Sunday. “Well, I don’t think — look, you were very mad at me recently for some of my predictions when I said how I think NASCAR will penalize things. I really don’t think they’re going to suspend Austin Dillon for a right-rear hook. I think NASCAR will tell the difference like this: NASCAR will say a right-rear hook in retaliation is grounds for a suspension. A right-rear hook like he did on Hamlin to force him into the wall for the win will be something else. And they’re not going to suspend him.
“Because here’s the problem: NASCAR has put itself in a huge bind. They can’t let someone win without penalizing them for excessive driving. And then suspending the person for that exact behavior. You just can’t do that. Those two things don’t go together. There’s no logical justification for those things. They could strip him of the win and give him a two-lap penalty for excessive driving, which to me would have been consistent because Austin Dillon would have finished 26th. They would have said, ‘OK, that was too far over the finish line, that was too far. Two-lap penalty, retroactive to the end of the race, now you go 26th. And we award it (the win) to the second-place finisher, which in this case was Denny Hamlin.'”
Denny Hamlin says Austin Dillon’s accidents in Richmond were “over the top”
Dillon could only win by eliminating Logano and Hamlin. He entered Sunday’s race 32nd in the points standings, well out of the playoffs. But now Dillon is eligible for the postseason. He will be part of the 16-driver field unless NASCAR decides to take the win away from him.
As you can imagine, neither Logano nor Hamlin were happy with the outcome. Hamlin believes Dillon went too far and NASCAR should deal with him accordingly.
“In a major sport where we like to put ourselves in the top tier of the sporting world, there are referees for a reason,” Hamlin said on the “Actions Detrimental” podcast on Monday. “I just don’t know why we let it get to this point over time. And I think you have a responsibility as a sanctioning body to set an example not only for your competitors but for the guys coming up and say, ‘This is how we race professionally. This is how racing is done.’
“…Let me ask you a question: If that’s not over the line, what is over the line? … He didn’t try to make a turn. He just drove until he destroyed him (Logano). He kept driving until he destroyed him.”
