NASCAR and its officiating procedure were once again put into question after a controversial race win by Austin Dillon at Richmond Raceway last Sunday. The RCR driver pulled off a bump and run on race leader Joey Logano, and right-hooking Denny Hamlin to secure his playoffs qualification. Now there’s a fine line between racing hard and crashing into your opponents, but unfortunately, it’s not defined.

There have been arguments and debates surrounding Austin Dillon’s course of action. Most of them are against him, stating that he deliberately took the two drivers out of commission in a desperate attempt to stay alive in the competition. But it’s hard to single out an expert opinion from a rant online these days. This is where Kevin Harvick’s experience with the Next Gen car and race situation comes into play. And surprisingly, he sided with Dillon, stating he was playing to the tunes of the system set by NASCAR in the first place.

NASCAR needs to rethink its: Win and you’re in approach

The playoffs format hasn’t been popular among NASCAR’s purists. The elimination format demands the drivers win a single race through the regular season, irrespective of how bad the season is going for them. In Austin Dillon’s case, he went from 32nd in points standing to now entering the playoffs, just on the back of a single victory.

Denny Hamlin, during his podcast show, opined that this fabricated excitement or entertainment product isn’t in the best interest of the sport. Adding to this, Harvick explained his reasoning behind Dillon’s motive in the last lap run at Richmond. “I think Denny really put this into perspective. He’s not mad at Austin Dillon for what he did. He’s frustrated that he didn’t win the race, but he understands the scenario that all of these drivers are in with the system.” Harvick said this on the Happy Hour podcast, episode No. 47.

Interestingly, a fellow RCR driver, Ryan Newman, was the one who first initiated this trend of bending the rules to his advantage. Back in 2017, Newman made the most of the late race restart by throwing dive bombs to defend his lead and secure the win at Phoenix during the spring. This was RCR’s first win in four years. And now, Dillon, with his antics, broke his two-year winless streak and secured a spot in the playoffs in a similar fashion.

But Harvick acknowledges the urgency of drawing a hard line to curb more incidents like this in the future. “I think that there has to be a line in the sand of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Until NASCAR officiates like that, these things are going to keep happening because that’s the system that you’re in win and you’re in, and that’s what Austin Dillon had to do.”

Denny Hamlin did table the idea of suspension for Dillon, making it an example for other drivers to keep in check. Well, NASCAR themselves have considered that they are looking into the incident and will announce penalties if there are any.

Dillon is likely to get off the hook

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During these close calls, NASCAR always relies on the precedent set by them in the past. Now we have seen Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace reprimanded following a rather similar incident. “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.” NASCAR SVP of Race Competition, Elton Sawyer, said after the race.

Now, the big differentiating factor here is that Austin Dillon’s action was during the penultimate period of the race. We have seen NASCAR keep their hands clean by not trying to change the final outcome of the race. Remember when NASCAR chose not to penalize Denny Hamlin for jumping the restart during the spring race? So, a similar ruling is expected to be announced soon.

Possibly docked points and a hefty fine is likely to be NASCAR’s verdict on the whole scenario. Thus making it a case of another driver bending the rules in his favor and getting away with any serious ramifications.