Austin Dillon came into Bristol believing he had a car that could contend. But by lap 29 Saturday night, that belief went flat—literally. The tires on his Chevy started coming apart, the right-front going soft like warm cheese, and suddenly his night turned from racing for position to just trying to survive. Add in an early pit road penalty, and the result was a long, miserable game of catch-up that ended with him 28th.
It wasn’t the night he wanted. It wasn’t really even a race.
“We didn’t process it fast enough,” Dillon admitted. “I thought I just had a flat. Didn’t know we were cording tires that quick. Fired off fine, then it was cording just like it did that one race a year ago. It’s unfortunate. I know NASCAR doesn’t want this to be the race for the Playoffs, because you want to be able to race it out. Our car had no problems in practice. I’m guessing the temperature change was the biggest thing. We just weren’t able to race hard.”
Instead of pushing for spots, Dillon found himself babying the car, counting laps, and praying the rubber stayed glued to the wheels.
“We wanted to race hard, and it turned into just putting around trying to make the tires live. Our car wasn’t good for that. Unfortunate for Bass Pro Shops Winchester—we just wanted a shot to race, and we didn’t really have that tonight.”
The No. 3 team tried every trick in the survival playbook—wave-arounds, strategy gambles, damage control. For a moment, it looked like Dillon might claw his way back onto the lead lap. But the tires refused to cooperate.
“The guys tried so hard,” Dillon said. “But our car couldn’t go as long as we needed, as fast as we needed. One run I went hard, and 21 laps was all I got before I was corded. I had to manage tires and hope things played out. If we’d run 15th tonight, we’d probably transfer, but things hit us fast at the beginning being the first car to go through.”
And that’s the sting: the race ended before it really began. Dillon’s Playoff dream didn’t implode in a spectacular wreck—it quietly bled away through rubber and penalties. Bristol doesn’t always explode your car; sometimes it just erases your chances one corded tire at a time.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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