Is it a racing or a wrecking series?

Anyone who loves NASCAR knows the quote: “He didn’t slam you, he didn’t bump you, he didn’t nudge you… he rubbed you. And rubbin’, son, is racin’”

Actor Robert Duvall uttered those immortal words, playing the fictional crew chief Harry Hogge (who we all know was the real-life Harry Hyde), in the NASCAR movie Days of Thunder. And maybe it was just coincidence that film’s other star, Tom Cruise, jumped off the roof of the Stade de France in the Olympic closing ceremony just hours earlier, because something was definitely ‘in the air’ for that final restart in Richmond on Sunday night.

Modern-day NASCAR has always been about the show as much as the sport, and this was one of those occasions where the two butted heads. A late yellow looked to have cost Austin Dillon a vital Cup race win, and a prized spot in the playoffs, as Joey Logano drove around the outside of him to take the lead in the overtime restart. “If he gets to him, there will be contact,” said NBC’s driver analyst Jeff Buton.

And it came to pass, well, spin in Logano’s case, as Dillon waited until he’d turned in to Turn 3 to ram his rear bumper and send him rotating into the wall. Now, Logano has absolutely pulled so-called ‘bump-and-run’ moves in his career and is no shrinking violet. Although this was more of a ‘bump-and-fence’, as he spun into the Turn 4 wall, this was within that “rubbin’ is racin’” mantra.

But what happened next really asked the question if Dillon went beyond line of what’s acceptable. Just like Burton, the following Denny Hamlin had foreseen what was coming, so he backed up his entry to make sure he’d get a great exit on the low line to snatch the win. With his spotter screaming “down, down, down, run him down, wreck him!” Dillon had other ideas, and yanked his wheel hard left to hook Hamlin’s right-rear quarter panel, which sent his second victim into the fence.

From there, Dillon just beat Tyler Reddick to the line – who gave him a rear-end slam of his own after the checkers, having seen Austin just wreck his team boss.

Let’s get one thing straight: The crowd on site loved it. Even though Hamlin is a Virginia native, he’s become something of a villain recently for myriad reasons. Logano, too, is someone who’s never been backwards in dishing out some on-track rough-housing.

While racing purists took to their…