Win and you’re in? Not so fast.
That may have been the motto in past years for NASCAR’s playoff elimination format, but 2024 was the year that proved a win gets you in — but only under certain terms and conditions.
Enter the 23rd race of the NASCAR Cup Series season at Richmond Raceway on Aug. 11. Austin Dillon needed a win and only a win to qualify for the playoffs, and he was having the night of his life after passing the dominant car of Denny Hamlin for the lead with 29 laps to go.
Dillon had the fastest car on long runs, and he had the win in the bag with a three-second lead — that is, until Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Preece wrecked right in front of him in turn 1 to bring out a caution with two laps to go. It was the first caution all night for an incident.
The No. 3 team had a clutch pit stop to keep Dillon in the lead for the restart, and we all know how those last two laps unfolded.
Joey Logano snookered Dillon to take a commanding lead into the final lap, only for Dillon to spin out Logano in turn 3 and right-rear Hamlin’s fast-approaching car at the exit of turn 4 with the checkered flag in sight.
Were Dillon’s moves unethical? Yes. Were they dirty? Yes.
Were they unexpected? No.
As dirty as it was, the only rules Dillon broke at the time of the race were unwritten ones. There was nothing in writing that prevented him from wrecking the two leaders, and he didn’t sugarcoat or try to downplay his actions either. He explicitly said that he “had to do it” in his post-race interview.
Dillon’s SMT data effectively confirmed that both wrecks were intentional alongside his implied confession, and if that wasn’t enough, Dillon’s spotter Brandon Benesch repeatedly yelled, “wreck him!” when Hamlin started gaining ground on him through the final turn.
Dillon made zero friends that night, and while he broke every gentlemen’s agreement one can think of, he left Richmond with a trophy and a playoff berth — the only things that truly mattered.
Richmond wasn’t the first race where a driver wrecked another driver to win — and it won’t be the last, either. But between the radio communications, Dillon’s post-race comments and the fact that he bulldozed not one, but two leaders out of the way in order to win and qualify for the playoffs, Dillon’s actions would force NASCAR’s hand in one way or another.
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