NASCAR insiders speculate on Austin Dillon penalty, stripping of controversial race win

Austin Dillon‘s win at Richmond has sparked some interesting conversations among fans, drivers and people who cover NASCAR. On The Teardown podcast, NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic discussed the win by Dillion and whether NASCAR will strip the victory from him since he wrecked Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin.

“I believe they said the finish is under review, and then they said Austin Dillon is the race winner,” Gluck said. Therefore, there was no penalty, there was no rough driving penalty, therefore he keeps the win. No matter what happens going forward, I think if I’m not mistaken, Austin Dillon will keep the win. They could come out on Tuesday and have some sort of a penalty, but the win is not in question.”

Bianchi believes there’s a chance NASCAR could strip the win from Dillon. “Elton [Sawyer] said they were going to look at it,” he said. “My interpretation is that they wouldn’t take away the win, that’s not customarily what they would do. But I wouldn’t completely rule it out. I would be surprised.”

Bianchi went on to say that Sawyer said that NASCAR is going to “review everything” and “look at everything.” He added: “So if they’re going to go and look at everything and piece everything together as they say, and he didn’t definitely say the win his is you know he’s in the playoffs, that to me opens it up saying hey, we don’t know yet.”

Before the race, Dillon was 32nd in points and had no chance of reaching the playoffs. But with Dillon getting the win, he has clinched a playoff spot and is now 13th in the playoff standings.

 “I’ve seen Denny and Joey make moves that have been running people up the track to win,” Dillon said during his post-race press conference. “This is the first opportunity in two years for me to be able to get a win. I drove in there and kept all four tires turning across the start/finish line.

“To me, I’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years in NASCAR where people move people. It’s just part of our sport. You know what I mean? Remember when Joey said ‘short-track racing’. He knows what it was. In your shoes, what would you do?”