Austin Dillon lost the lead to Joey Logano on the restart to overtime but as the two raced into Turn 3 on the final lap, the former drove hard into the corner and into the back of Logano, sending him into the wall.
Moments later, Dillon defended his lead by pitching Denny Hamlin into the wall.
The caution was displayed for the wreck and Dillon crossed the finish line first. NASCAR officials did not hesitate at the time to direct Dillon to Victory Lane.
NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, said the sanctioning body would still review Dillon’s actions as well as those of Logano, who pulled into Dillon’s team’s pit stall after the race and spun his tyres with a crowd of people around.
“I thought the last lap, that’s something that, you know, our sport has been a contact sport for a long time,” Sawyer said. “You know we always hear ‘Where’s the line?’ and did someone cross the line?
“I would say that the last lap, it was awful close to the line. We’ll take a look at all the available resources from audio to video … to see if anything rises to a level that we feel like we need to penalise.”
In the past, NASCAR has generally penalised retaliatory moves and also intentional wrecking opponents, but that is usually reserved for incidents on intermediate and superspeedways.
“Historically, that hasn’t been our DNA to take race [wins] away, but that’s not to say that going forward this wouldn’t start to set a precedent, or do we have to look at it,” he said.
Watch: ‘He destroyed us’: Crew chief Gabehart reacts to late-race contact from Austin Dillon
“We want our drivers to race hard but if we feel like maybe we’re getting to a point in time where that would have crossed the line. We’ll look at all data and discuss next week to see if anything rises to a different higher level where it would be a penalty.”
Pressed on whether NASCAR would have called a penalty at the time if it really felt Dillon’s actions deserved it, Sawyer said, “It happened fast, but I would say if you look at that, in my view, that’s getting right up really close to the line.”
Dillon’s car owner and grandfather, Richard Childress, was adamant nothing transpired at the end of the race that hadn’t happened countless times previously.
“Short-track racing is short-track racing. You’re going to see it. I’ve seen it more than once,” Childress said.
“When it comes down to the end of the day, any of these guys do what it takes to win the race there at the very end.”
