Austin Dillon Crossed ‘Invisible Line’ to Wreck Logano and Hamlin For the Victory at Richmond
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Austin Dillon was first to the finish at Richmond.
The question is whether he crossed a different sort of line on his way there.
Dillon won for the first time in nearly two years in the Cup Series on Sunday night, but the race seemed out of reach before he spun Joey Logano out of the way and then sent Denny Hamlin into the wall as well — all in the final few seconds. Once the initial celebration ended, Dillon had quite a bit to answer for — but becoming a NASCAR villain for a few days may be a small price to pay for such a desperately needed victory.
“Absolutely a line was crossed, but it’s an invisible line,” Hamlin said. “It’s not defined. I mean, they have rules and provisions for stuff like this, but they never take action for it.”
Elton Sawyer, the senior vice president of competition, indicated NASCAR would take a good long look at the end of this race, but that doesn’t mean the penalties will outweigh the benefits of Dillon’s aggressiveness. He was outside the top 30 in the standings, but this one victory put him on track to make the playoffs.
“Our sport has been a contact sport for a long time. We always hear, ‘Where’s the line?’” Sawyer said. “I would say that the last lap was awful close to the line. We’ll take a look at all the available resources. … If anything rises to a level that we feel like we need to penalize then we’ll do that on Tuesday.”
The reactions from other drivers were unsurprising. Logano was livid. Hamlin said the collision blew his shoulder out. Even Bubba Wallace — tangentially involved because Dillon leapfrogged him in the playoff race — tossed a few barbs the winner’s way.
