NASCAR handed down severe penalties to driver Austin Dillon following a contentious last-lap incident during the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway. Dillon, who initially secured an automatic playoff spot with his race victory, was stripped of this position and docked 25 points.
Jeff Burton, a former NASCAR driver and current NBC sports analyst, alongside analyst Dustin Long, provided a thorough breakdown of the incident. Burton commented on NBC:
“It’s a difficult situation, right? I mean, this system that we have – not only in how you make the playoffs and how you transfer through the playoffs and how you win a championship, but also when you put that in context with what it means for how you get paid next year, how you get paid this year. This is a massive decision. It just is. And this system puts drivers in the position to do things like this. It puts them in the situation where they have to do things that they’re uncomfortable with. And so then, that requires NASCAR to police it. And it requires them, in my eyes, in a way more than ever in the history of the sport, to draw the lines.
“Clearly, I think when you watch all that, I have sympathy for Austin because he’s out there trying to win a race. He’s out there trying to get himself in the playoffs, he’s out there doing everything that you ask your race car driver to do as a car owner. It’s just, it was over the line. And I think everybody that watched it – well, not everybody because nobody agrees on everything – but I’ll tell you the majority of people that watched it said, okay, if this isn’t over the line, then what is? What is over the line?”
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Burton also touched on the comprehensive approach NASCAR must take when enforcing penalties. He continued:
“NASCAR, they’ve got to take a step back and they have to look at all the data. They have to look at all the information. When they looked at it, they’re like look, in totality, all of these things together, it wasn’t just the 22, it wasn’t just the 11. It was those two things together. His spotter was on the radio. He was saying wrecking. All that stuff, collectively, adds up. And so NASCAR made the decision.
“I think they struggled with it. I think that the reason they struggled with it is because not only are you penalizing Richard Childress Racing and Austin Dillon. You’re affecting the entire field, and you’re affecting a lot of things. So you have to get it right. At the end of the day, I think they got it right. But I also have sympathy for Austin Dillon and his team. Two things can be true at the same time.”
