Austin Dillon Wins The NASCAR Cup Series Race At Richmond With No Asterisk This Time

Austin Dillon returned to the scene of the crime and stole the show.

The Richard Childress Racing driver, who won at Richmond last year, but had his playoff berth revoked for wrecking Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano on the way to the finish line, won the Cook Out 400 on Saturday night.

Dillon’s team worked a perfect tire strategy on a night dominated by tire fall-off to put him in position to take the lead on lap 352 of the 400-lap race and drive away for the win.

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron was the last driver with a shot at catching Dillon and was closing the gap in the final laps, but came up short by 2.417 seconds at the finish.

The win catapulted Dillon from 28th in the points into the playoffs with one race to go in the regular season at Daytona.

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“I really wanted that one,” Dillon said during his post-race interview on USA. “Last year hurt really bad, just going through the whole process of it, but this one feels so sweet and I love Richmond.”

Asked why he’s strong at Richmond, Dillon said, “tire management. I probably am the slowest to get going on some of these tracks when it really comes to high grip, but when it comes to these places and taking care of your stuff I’ll go against the best of them.”

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Tyler Reddick and Bowman are the only two drivers in the 16-slot playoff picture without a win and stand 89 and 60 points above the cutline with Chris Buescher 60 points below it.

William Byron recovered from contact with his teammate Chase Elliott during a huge multi-car pileup on lap 198 to salvage a 12th place finish, which was enough to lock up the regular season championship.