In his playoff-clinching victory at Richmond Raceway, Austin Dillon shared some NASCAR history on the venerable short track with the most famous driver of the No. 3 Chevrolet.
Dale Earnhardt, the late seven-time Cup Series champion who amassed 76 victories in a NASCAR Hall of Fame career, was the most recent Richard Childress Racing driver to win consecutive Cup Series races on the 0.75-mile oval in Richmond, Virginia — doing so in September 1990 and February 1991 — until Dillon completed the feat Saturday night.
The comparisons to fellow North Carolina native Earnhardt, who died in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, and whispers of nepotism have dogged Dillon since the grandson of team owner Richard Childress was tabbed 11 years ago to drive the car number synonymous with a NASCAR icon.
“I could win 50 races, and they’ll say my grandpa gave me the ride,” Dillon said with a smile. “They’re not wrong. He did. He did a great job putting me in it. Hopefully, I’m paying off on his investment at some point.”
Saturday’s win at Richmond was his sixth victory overall in 433 career starts on NASCAR’s top level, but the 35-year-old Dillon said snapping a 37-race winless streak was “one of the best because it was pretty much a butt kicking.” He led 107 of 400 laps, including the final 49, and his margin of victory over second-place finish Alex Bowman, a fellow Chevy driver who competes for Hendrick Motorsports, was 2.471 seconds.
Dillon never led for more than 35 laps in any of his previous Cup Series wins. He won the 2018 Daytona 500 by leading only the last lap after knocking Aric Almirola aside two turns from the checkered flag, and last year’s win at Richmond was his most controversial as Dillon wrecked Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin on the final lap. NASCAR let him keep the win but revoked his playoff eligibility days later.
There was no such drama Saturday night, when Dillon cleanly outdueled Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, the 2023 Cup Series champion, just before his final pit stop.
“Anybody that says Austin doesn’t deserve to be at this level, look at the 30 or 40 laps he raced side by side with Ryan Blaney,” said Richard Boswell, Dillon’s crew chief. “He raced door to door with a Cup champion. He beat him. Yeah, we need to run better. We need to be more consistent. But anybody that says he just can’t do it is not looking at the facts.”
The statistics are less convincing about Dillon’s championship chances.
Richmond was the first top-five finish in 25 races this year for Dillon, who is 25th in the points standings and will be part of the 16-driver field for the playoffs for just the sixth time in 12 seasons. However, he did win championships in the second-tier Xfinity Series (2013) and the third-tier Truck Series (2011), and he owns a combined 22 victories across NASCAR’s three national circuits.
“Austin has earned his way,” Childress said. “He won races in everything he’s ever driven. They’re going to give you criticism because he is my grandson. But we take it. It’s just the way life is. You can’t be burdened down by what people say. Do what you do and move forward. He’s won his share.”
Dillon said he cried last year during RCR’s unsuccessful appeal of the NASCAR penalty that took him out of the playoff field, noting he had legitimately passed Hamlin and Logano before a late caution erased a comfortable lead. The Richmond repeat validated Dillon’s belief that he belongs in NASCAR’s premier series.
“I think I get the credit I deserve,” he said. “I have some loyal fans. We’re kind of like a fighter. We don’t go away. I think a lot of people think that guy is going to go away at some point. I like that underdog mentality a little bit.”
He also likes his new pairing with Boswell, who joined RCR after taking Chase Briscoe to the playoffs last year in the final season for Stewart-Haas Racing. Boswell made a pivotal call to pit with 59 laps remaining just after Dillon took the lead from Blaney.
“I have a great team right now, probably one of the strongest we’ve built,” Dillon said. “We want to make this organization as strong as some of the top teams. We scrap and claw and figure out ways to win. I think we have fun when we do that.”
Dillon became the 14th winner to lock into the playoffs heading into next Saturday night’s regular-season finale at Florida’s Daytona International Speedway. At least one winless driver will qualify for the playoffs, and 2024 regular-season champion Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing and Bowman occupy the final two provisional spots in the points standings.
Reddick was on track to clinch a playoff spot at Richmond after leading 41 laps, but he finished 34th after being caught in a crash that started when Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez bumped Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs.
“It’s pretty much worst-case scenario for us,” Reddick said. “We can thank Daniel Suarez for that. Went from a car that was one of the fastest on the track to one of the slowest.”
Bubba Wallace, one of Reddick’s teammates, led a race-high 123 laps in his No. 23 Toyota but finished two laps down in 28th after losing a tire during a pit stop. He is already locked into the playoffs after winning last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
With a 12th-place finish, William Byron clinched the regular-season title as Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott finished last at Richmond. Byron had a 42-point lead over Elliott heading into the weekend.
Byron will be awarded 15 playoff points, which will provide a good head start to being one of four drivers still eligible for the title in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway for the third consecutive year.
“It’s huge,” Byron said. “No one’s running away with this thing, which is going to create a really crazy playoffs. I feel like we’re in rhythm.”