Austin Dillon win, penalty impact: How far will drivers go? How will NASCAR rule?
BROOKLYN, Mich. — Drivers often say they would wreck their mother to win a race. They must project that aggressive spirit to delight their fans, to have the respect of their team members, and to, possibly, put their competitors on notice.
But here's the catch: Some really won't do it, and the definition of wrecking varies from driver to driver.
Most indicated how Austin Dillon won Aug. 11 at Richmond Raceway went to the extreme as the plowed into Joey Logano to spin him and then hooked Denny Hamlin on the way to the win. He has said the hook wasn't intentional, that he was just trying to get his car to the finish line.
NASCAR did not penalize Dillon in the moment but announced last week that Dillon would not be allowed to use the win for the automatic berth into the NASCAR playoffs. NASCAR rules allow NASCAR to revoke that berth, stating that finishes must be "unencumbered by violation(s) of the NASCAR Rules or other action(s) detrimental to stock car racing or NASCAR."
Richard Childress Racing is appealing the decision, and the appeal will be heard Wednesday. NASCAR rules require the sanctioning body to prove "it is more likely than not that a violation occurred, [and] the penalty assessed is within the scope of the rules."
"Everybody at RCR deserves to be in the playoffs, and we will do our best to show our position in that [appeal]," Dillon said. "And then after that, [my focus] is trying to win Daytona or Darlington, whatever comes next."
NASCAR officials said the decision was made to keep the integrity in the sport. Which would indicate that they believe drivers would continue to go to those extremes if NASCAR did not make the call.
So would they?
"You race what the rules are, and if the rules are something's OK, we're going to probably find a way to do it, right?" said team owner and driver Brad Keselowski. "Whether that's on the car or on the racetrack."
His driver, though, Chris Buescher, couldn't envision himself doing it. He had the opportunity at the end of the Kansas race earlier this year to wreck his way to a win.
"If I was willing to do something different, the ending at Kansas mattered just as much as any of these next three, and I would have done something crazy there," Buescher said. "But that's not how I grew up in this thing. ... Whatever the ruling — there may not be the most clarity there for if you're trying to put it on paper — but I know."
Brad Keselowski talks Austin Dillon & RFK racing drivers
Dillon flat out said Sunday after the move that "a lot of people lose their jobs because they don't get to the start-finish line first." The data shows Dillon turning left at a much sharper rate than a driver would in the turn and Hamlin indicated no matter the reaction of him after the Logano contact, that the data shows intent.
"Every time that something happens, you're going to go back to a previous event and say, ‘Is that OK or is that not OK?'" Logano said. "There's no doubt that lines were crossed. That's what they all came to a conclusion with when they handed down the penalties.
"That's what you're going to go off from now on."
Logano has had his share of contact in battling for wins, although he would argue that the driver on the other end didn't end up wrecked and/or had roughed him up to originally get by him. Kyle Busch, Dillon's teammate and who once decked Logano after a race for wrecking him, saw it as an ironic situation and defended Dillon, whom Logano said "sucked" as a driver.
"Certainly, there's a right way to win races and there's a wrong way to win races," Busch said. "There's a lot of guys that have done some desperate things to get wins even when they're not desperate.
"The one [Logano] that had it happen to him is probably the one that's done it the most that doesn't need to do it. I guess his comments, he can be calling himself that."
There can be a right way, a wrong way in drivers' eyes ... and both of those can be different than what is legal in NASCAR's eyes. Busch said a driver needs to approach it pretty much as Dillon did at Richmond.
"You do whatever you can and whatever you think you need to do in the moment, and you reap the consequences after," Busch said.
The consequences can be more than just from NASCAR. Reputation goes a long way, and the sport can be self-policing with drivers on the bad side of others never getting an inch in the give-and-take environment of racing. Todd Gilliland said his mom asked him after the race if he would make such a move.
"If he's on his bumper, he theoretically means to nudge the 22 [of Logano] out of the way and kind of race to the line," Gilliland said. "But to me, that was just a wreck and hope for the best.
"He had his whole future for the rest of the season in front of him. So I personally don't think I would have, but we obviously saw it was really close to working out."
Some drivers said they would not make that move although it also could depend on the circumstances and how that driver raced them in the event or previous events.
Denny Hamlin on the implications of Austin Dillon's penalty
"I don't think I could that," said Erik Jones, who sits 27th in the standings. "That's not to say that things don't change in the moment, and how you were raced before that changes things.
"Obviously, that was not the situation here, but it depends on what is going down, but it is really not in my playbook."
Drivers believe they still will have plenty of contact, especially in closing laps where NASCAR has given them latitude to use the car to shove another and especially when returning a shove that had been used in a bump-and-run maneuver.
"We are still going to make contact, but it is certainly going to give us pause in those situations where you saw like last weekend where it is not going to be worth it to clear somebody out that was deservingly going to win the race, which is the fair part of sport of this," Hamlin said.
"There is a balance of entertainment and sport that can be had here. It is just a matter of where this is really one that you need to put your foot down and we have to police the sporting aspect of this."
But just where do they put the foot down?
"You have the culture of the driver, the culture of the garage area, the culture of the sport," Keselowski said. "Culture is not just what you practice and preach, it's what you tolerate, whether that's in the sport or in anything in life.
"NASCAR had to decide what could be tolerated? I think they made a good attempt at putting a line in the sand. We'll see how that sticks."
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
