Austin Dillon‘s Richmond win was anything but savory to the ears and eyes! The Richard Childress Racing driver took the checkered flag but couldn’t escape a controversy. The #3 literally swept his way through Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin. What added fuel to the fire was a radio conversation where RCR team owner and Dillon’s “pop pop” Richard Childress contentiously said, “I don’t care how you do it” posing a do-or-die situation for the driver.

Soon after, another incriminating evidence surfaced where Dillon’s spotter Brandon Benesch was clearly heard, saying “Wreck him! Wreck him!” garnering the community’s wrath. But if you ask Brett Griffin—mostly known for his off-beat takes—Benesch didn’t do anything wrong.

Are spotter outbursts a common thing?

On the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Griffin opined, “This is not the first time a spotter has ever said, ‘wreck somebody’. This is not the first time that anybody has ever encouraged anybody to wreck somebody.”  The DBC host also took some names, including that of Tab Boyd’s (currently Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s spotter) and Joel Edmonds (Aric Almirola’s spotter), for making similar statements regularly.

Furthermore, Griffin also defended the RCR spotter: “This is going to probably get blown way out of f**king proportion and in reality how many times when you guys are on the roof when another spotter comes down there and starts fussing at you for what your driver and your scenario is doing, do y’all say I’m not driving the car. The spotter can say whatever the hell he wants in any scenario but he still not driving the car.”

This is actually an interesting way to look at it, isn’t it? Indeed, it was not Benesch who was driving that car that day. So is the fault totally Dillon’s for acting out? Whatever the case, the spotter’s momentary outburst may lead to some severe repercussions. Remember when Cole Custer and his spotter Michael Shiplett were fined $100,000 each, in 2022, over radio conversations around intentional blocking? “Slow up,” is all the spotter had said, trying to help Custer’s then-teammate Chase Briscoe make it into the playoffs.

But fine or not, Dillon doesn’t seem to be regretting anything fresh off of his first win of the season.

Dillon is happy with his race

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The #3 of RCR was unapologetic for the way he conducted things on that last lap. Post the race he said, “I felt like with two [laps] to go, we were the fastest car obviously at the straightway and wrecked the guy. I hate to do that but sometimes you just got to have it.” Also, Richard Childress was unapologetic too as on the radio controversy, he later said,  “Well, if he did [say it], spotter did a good job, because it won him the race.” 

The driver even defended himself later saying how amidst a lack of wins, it was right to take up the opportunity when it presented itself.

Ironically, amidst the subtle brush-off of guilt, the #3’s old video surfaced where he was seen calling for a penalty against Austin Cindric, who wrecked him “intentionally”. During the Enjoy Illinois 300, Dillon and Cindric were racing hard late in the race when a miscalculation by the latter—trying to squeeze himself between the #3 and Ricky Stenhouse Jr—resulted in contact with the RCR driver, ending his race.

Notably, Cindric had escaped any penalties or suspensions.

But, when we talk about the ongoing controversy, what’s the precedent NASCAR wants to set? Elton Sawyer, the governing body’s Senior VP of Competition, has been very neutral on the incident, as according to him, the incident did not cross the ‘unacceptable’ line.

He said, “Our sport has been a contact sport for a long time. You always hear, ‘Where’s the line, did someone cross the line?’ I would say the last lap was awful close to the line, we’ll take a look at all of the available resources from audio to video, listen to spotters, we’ll listen to crew chiefs and drivers and if anything rises to a level that we feel like we need to penalize then we’ll do that on Tuesday.”

The question is if penalized, would it be just a monetary fine? Or would he lose his playoff chance? What do you think it should be? Let us know in the comments below.