Austin Dillon airs it out on NASCAR penalty appeal process: 'Wish everybody could see it, television'

The big ruling in NASCAR this week was that Austin Dillon forfeited his playoff spot based on his win at Richmond Raceway for conduct detrimental to the sport.

He will seek to have that penalty overturned, filing an appeal with NASCAR.

Dillon opened up on that appeal on the track at Michigan on Saturday, a day before the FireKeepers Casino 400.

“Truthfully I think the best thing I can say right now is we’ve got an appeal process,” Austin Dillon said. “I think this entire sport — I’ve got to be careful with what I give out right now for the appeal process, because it’s going to be like a trial. It really is. Wish everybody could see it, television. Would be cool to be in there. Because I haven’t really given my entire story of the game yet.

“I feel like Denny (Hamlin) did a really good job on his podcast giving his side of the story adamantly this week, a couple extra podcasts than he normally does. For us, I also listened to his podcast when he talked about the appeal process and how tough it is. So I’m going to do my best to get RCR in the playoffs where they need to be, where they deserve to be currently.”

Austin Dillon, of course, lost his playoff spot after wrecking Joey Logano and Hamlin in the final turns of the Cook Out 400. It was a controversial situation, exacerbated by the fact that Dillon’s spotter urged him to wreck drivers over the team radio.

His spotter was suspended for three Cup Series races as a result.

But Dillon and his entire team will be part of the appeals process, trying to explain what was going through their minds during the final lap.

“I think I’ll obviously have my turn to talk about what happened,” Dillon said. “Justin (Alexander) will be in there, my crew chief. We’ll go through as much as we can and give our side of the story is the best thing I can say, and see where it goes from there.”

Win or lose, Austin Dillon promised after the appeal he’d open up on his thoughts a little more.

“From there I will give all the media and everybody else my exact feelings after that’s all said and done and over with, but man I can’t say enough about NASCAR,” he said. “They’ve given me everything I’ve got in this life, even my wife and kids. I met my wife at the racetrack, so I’m thankful for winning races. We’ve got a win this year, which feels really good. Yeah, we’ll just keep going and seeing what comes of the next couple weeks.”

Without the appeal going his way, Austin Dillon will have to win a race to qualify for the playoffs. He’s too far behind on points at this point to realistically get there without a win.

So for now, Dillon is doing his best to put last weekend out of his mind and focus on what’s in front of him.

“It’s been tough, obviously a lot going on. But Monday was a lot of fun, Sunday night was a lot of fun,” Dillon said. “We got our Dow Chevrolet here this week and it’s good. We get to start 10th this week, I guess, because of the metrics, and we’re going to go out there and give it all we’ve got again. With the current situation we’ve got to win. Hopefully after our appeal we get back in the playoffs where we deserve to be. Just excited about what we’ve got going on at RCR.”