Elton Sawyer addresses NASCAR precedent for incidents similar to Austin Dillon's Richmond wrecks

Elton Sawyer had some interesting things to say about Austin Dillon‘s victory at Richmond Raceway on Sunday. NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition spoke to reporters after the Cook Out 400 and was asked if Dillon’s win could be stripped from him since he wrecked Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin.

“Historically that hasn’t been our DNA to take races away,” Sawyer said, per Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut. “But that’s not to say that going forward this wouldn’t start to set a precedent and we have to look at it.”

NASCAR driver Ryan Vargas shared a video on social media that showed the ending of a 2010 Xfinity Series race that was somewhat similar to what happened on Sunday. The winning driver bumped the first-place car on the final lap for the victory. Vargas said the driver was penalized $25,000, was placed on probation, and lost 60 points.”

This is the most recent finish (that I can think of) that had a similar type of maneuver for the win.

Year: 2010
Series: Xfinity
Penalty:
-60 driver & owner pt deduction
-$25K penalty
-Probation

Would this be technically the standard?? Like, I don’t know. pic.twitter.com/ej6FmiiGSA

— Ryan Vargas (@RyanVargas_23) August 12, 2024

Dillon’s incident was different since he was four car lengths from Logano before sending him to the wall. He then spun out Hamlin before earning the win.

Elton Sawyer shares more on Austin Dillon’s win

“Our sport has been a contact sport for a long time. You always hear, ‘Where’s the line, did someone cross the line?’ I would say the last lap was awful close to the line, we’ll take a look at all of the available resources from audio to video, listen to spotters, we’ll listen to crew chiefs and drivers and if anything rises to a level that we feel like we need to penalize then we’ll do that on Tuesday,” Sawyer said.“

After the race, Logano went down to pit road, revved his engine and did a burnout in front of Dillon’s crew. Sawyer was asked if NASCAR would penalize Logano for his actions. “We’ll take, you know, we don’t want to make a split-second decision and get it wrong, so we want to make sure we go back, and we’ll look at everything that happened on the last lap and postrace and see if any penalties need to be issued,” Sawyer said.

Dillon is standing by his actions as he was doing anything he could to win. “It’s just the rules of the sport, right? ” Dillon said during his press conference on Sunday. “It is what it is. Wins get you into the next round. I did what I had to do to cross the start/finish line first. As far as good for the sport, I heard we were trending No. 1 on Twitter right now. People must be viewing it right now, so that’s good.”