Last year at Richmond was the clearest demonstration of exactly what an automatic Playoff berth means.
Austin Dillon was on the outside looking in of the Playoffs heading into Richmond, but was on his way to secure an automatic berth as he cruised through the final thirty laps in the lead. However, the only natural caution of the race came out with two laps to go, setting up an Overtime restart.
In the restart, Joey Logano was able to jump to the lead and stretched his advantage to nearly a carlength by the last corner on the last lap. Dillon was having none of it, though, and drove in deep into the corner, slamming into Logano and sending him spinning. Then, when Denny Hamlin was able to get to his inside, Dillon turned down the track and hooked Hamlin into the outside wall as well.
Dillon won that race. However, that day he earned a chorus of boos from the fans and later that week he learned that, while he was able to keep the trophy, the victory would not confer automatic Playoff eligibility.
That level of aggression and desperation is something to expect again this year. The stakes are the same: a win confers an automatic Playoff berth and there are just two races to go before the Playoff grid is set, and the whole field knows it.
“I watched the race here last year and I can’t believe the lengths people go through to get in. It’s a desperate situation, and it means so much to get in the playoffs,” said Shane van Gisbergen.
“I think that’s an awesome part of this sport. It creates those storylines and that desperation to win when someone’s in that position. There’s a lot of people in the bubble and a lot of people needing a win, and hopefully that creates some good but safe racing for the next couple of weeks.”
However, one year on, the drivers involved explained they hope that NASCAR’s officiating decision to strip away automatic eligibility from Dillon’s win should limit some of the desperate divebombs and let drivers channel their desperation more cleanly.
For Joey Logano, the penalty was a welcome show by the sanctioning body that their rules matter, which not only led to the right answer in that situation but also an important precedent going forward to hopefully avoid a similar situation.
“I’m not a big person that reads the rulebook, I just look at how rules are enforced. If rules are enforced then that’s a real rule,” Logano described. And NASCAR gets put in a spot occasionally we’re they’re forced to enforce a rule, and depending on how they do that will set the tone for the future.”
That means, even with the stakes the same, there’s a real incentive not to make the same sort of moves this time around.
“Yeah, there are going to be people desperate trying to win a race and probably willing to do a lot of things, but they’ll probably not go that far because they’ll see it wasn’t worth it,” Logano said. “We all know it doesn’t mean anything if you do it the wrong way.”
Denny Hamlin echoed Logano’s thoughts, saying that – whether the decision was right or wrong – some clarity and consistency is desperately needed for drivers and teams in a situation like that.
“They are not afraid to make hard decisions,” Hamlin said of NASCAR, “and I think that is very, very important with the governing of the sport in general, so it is not a circus.”
Nonetheless, he accepted that moves may still be made which blur the line, especially on a late restart. Hamlin said that while there’s no way to completely avoid all of it, he certainly changes his approach when he’s around drivers in a must-win position at the end of a race at this time of year.
“There is always going to be chatter when you are racing around those that have to win to get in the Playoffs at this point of the season,” Hamlin described.
“You just know that those group of drivers are going to be more intense around you and make more aggressive moves and put you in pretty tough spots. That is really where it changes – late race restarts where that is their last and only attempt.”
So while the drivers are hopeful that NASCAR’s decisive decision-making should limit the sort of aggressive desperation that grabbed the headlines at Richmond last year, they’re certainly prepared for the possibility of more of the same.
The overall goal is to put it behind them altogether and make it a moot point by getting the win themselves.
“It’s a year ago, got to move forward here at some point, right? Just got to go get sweet redemption, win the race that we had won,” said Logano.
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