“The line was crossed, and NASCAR responded correctly,” Front Row Motorsports No. 34 Cup Series driver Michael McDowell had said days back about Austin Dillon’s penalty. But who knows where is the line?

That is what has created widespread speculation about whether Dillon’s penalty was justified or not. The No. 3 RCR driver, in Turn 4 on the final lap at the Cook Out 400 in Richmond, intentionally took out Joey Logano to spin him, then swerved and hooked Denny Hamlin into the wall to clinch the win. In response, NASCAR, as a penalty, took away Dillon’s playoff eligibility. While RCR has appealed against the ruling, Hamlin thinks Dillon might not completely get away with the penalty. And Hendrick Motorsports might be at the center of the reason.

Last year, the National Motorsports Appeals Panel (NMAP) adjusted Hendrick Motorsports’ penalty, awarded by NASCAR, for Modified car louvers, crucial in impacting downforce, discovered during practice for the Phoenix race. NASCAR did not take that lightly. It led to the officials updating penalty appeals guidelines. Referring to that, Denny Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental podcast, that this updation is something that might make Dillon’s ruling stay.

“NASCAR has changed some language in the appeal process. After the Hendrick louvers shenanigans, or whatever it might be right, where the panel says, ‘you’re guilty, but we’re gonna just change the penalty.’ NASCAR did not like that one bit, not even a little bit.

“So they changed the language I believe to say, ‘the panel has to judge are they guilty of what we said they were or not? And if they’re not, then you can say there is no penalty but you can’t just change it, come up with a new penalty like they did for the Hendrick guys.” Hamlin noted.

The rule change Hamlin was referring to came in April, just a month after Hendrick Motorsports got a waiver from NMAP on a penalty that was the largest combined penalty for a single organization in series history. HMS was stripped of 100 regular-season points and 10 playoffs for Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Kyle Larson. A fine of $100,000 was slapped on each of its four crew chiefs, Cliff Daniels, Alan Gustafson, Rudy Fugle, and Blake Harris, along with four-race suspensions for the quartet. However, NMAP gave them a breather.

A 3-member NMAP panel restored 100 points to each of the three drivers while upholding fines and suspensions. That had brought Bowman to the top spot in the Cup Series standings at that point. Following that, NASCAR officials updated the language in Section 10.5.2 of the NASCAR Rule Book. It states that while NMAP can completely overturn a penalty, it can not selectively do away with some elements of it.  Let us understand it more clearly.

To put it simply, if a penalty includes points reductions, fines, and suspensions, NAMP can only reduce it (that too within a limit), but can not completely eliminate it like they did by reallocating points to HMS. “Our penalties have been consistent, we’ve issued consistent penalties. We were surprised, as I think a lot of the fans, were in the ruling, particularly on the Hendrick (appeal) taking away all points. So we recognize that our system had a flaw,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Chief Operating Officer, had said about the move.

Despite the claim of consistency, Hamlin can not stop being surprised at how the situation has turned out to be. “That had to be the first time I had ever seen that. Now we don’t have a ton of close-race penalties, but we did back in the day. I never remember a recap where it was like, ‘Disclaimer: what you’re seeing is not real.’ What they’re saying about being in the playoffs, it’s not real,” he said on the podcast. Alongside, Hamlin also weighed in on what argument RCR might make to overturn the ruling and NASCAR’s defense to that.

Notably, Dillon has been allowed to keep his win, his fifth Cup Series victory. But the loss of 25 driver points dropped him from 26th place to 31st in the standings. After a 17th-place finish in Monday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan, Dillon moved up to 29th place in the standings. Hamlin believes that this is going to be RCR’s biggest point that the NASCAR rulebook mentions that a win puts a driver in playoff. So, here they are violating their own rulebook. But NASCAR also has a fairly strong defense.

“I would argue that a little bit because I read some language to you last week that was in the rulebook that when it comes to the kind of fairness of the sport they can make unprecedented calls, I think what NASCAR is going to defend,” Hamlin noted. So how does the rest of the process work after an appeal has been lodged?

The three-member appeals panel will hear the representatives of RCR and NASCAR on Wednesday. Then it will take a call on two points. First, if there has been a violation. Secondly, if yes, whether the penalty by NASCAR should be upheld or overturned. If RCR loses the initial appeal, it will get a second chance to present its case to the final appeals officer. But if NASCAR loses the first appeal, it ends there, they can not approach the final officer. The ruling is going to be crucial for the standings.

As we head to the Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday, 12 drivers have already secured playoff spots by a victory with two races left in the regular season. If Dillon’s playoff eligibility is restored, he will be the 13th driver to get that. This will once again alter the playoff picture that saw a stunning change after Dillon’s Richmond victory. While his chances hang on a thread, his fellow drivers ponder over how obscure the so-called ‘line’ is that Dillon is accused of crossing.

Denny Hamlin and others agree to lack of clarity in NASCAR rules

Brad Keselowski, the No.6 Cup Series driver of RFK Racing, puts it in a very interesting way. According to him, the NASCAR officials “made as good of an attempt as you could make to draw a line in the sand!” Dillon’s RCR teammate Kyle Busch is even more direct in his words.

“They all want to say we know where the line is; we don’t know where the line is. [Joey] Logano flat out wrecked me at Vegas for third place in the exact fashion that (Dillon) knocked him out of the way for a win. That’s why he got punched in the face (in a viral 2017 fight),” the No. 8 RCR driver said. However, Hamlin thinks the line is clear.

Cars battling and making contact because of close racing are quite understandable. But intentionally wrecking the leader just to win the race is not. After Dillon’s penalty was announced, most of his rivals supported the decision. The foremost voice among them was Joey Logano, who himself got fined for dangerous actions on the pit road. However, drivers like Ross Chastain have drawn up theories.

The Trackhouse Racing driver himself faced some inconsistency—he was penalized in Indianapolis because his shortcut was too glaring. Then officials allowed his “Hail Melon” move at Martinsville to stand but later banned it for future use. Chastain reasoned that you cannot ruffle the feathers of the higher-ups too much. “You just can’t be too far against the grain, in my opinion,” he said of what causes NASCAR to react. But Keselowski has some discounts for NASCAR authorities for not being able to come out clean about the limits.

He noted the unpredictability of races in this regard. New situations arise in almost every race that might mess up NASCAR’s direction. “We want them to be proactive and not reactive, but they’re outnumbered significantly by people who are always trying to find new ways to beat systems. And in some cases, they have to be reactive. This is one of those cases, in my mind.”

Whatever the situation, it clearly lacks clarity, as Denny Hamlin and others agree. Given the multiple cases of judicial inconsistency, we wait to watch what the future holds in store for Dillon.