The end of the NASCAR Cup Series race from a year ago at Richmond Raceway didn’t change in the re-watch that Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin did during their traditional weekend preparation.
Logano was still spun from the race lead by Austin Dillon in Turn 3 on the final lap. Hamlin was still hooked by Dillon coming off Turn 4. He had been running third when the chaos started, and briefly looked like he was going to steal the victory. But Dillon made sure he was the only one who made it to the finish line.
“It’s disappointing from my standpoint, but I wasn’t going to win the race anyway,” Hamlin said. “I had about a one-second period where I was supposed to win, and the other time I was not. It wasn’t like the race that I had here in ’08 where I led the entire race, and then you don’t end up winning. Those are a little harder than the ones where it’s like, ‘I’m going to win! Oh, no, I’m not.’
“It’s just wild. It’s wild how it all turned out and to hear all the radio back. Now looking back on it, it was just a wild moment.”
Dillon was the fastest car in 2024 and was handily on his way to winning the race before the caution came out with two laps to go. It erased a 3.2s gap Dillon had built on Hamlin. Logano was running third at the time.
The caution brought the field down pit road for the final time. Dillon beat Logano and Hamlin off pit road and chose the bottom for the restart with Logano on his outside. Logano beat Dillon into Turn 1 and cleared him off Turn 2 to take the lead.
“I did (watch it back),” Logano said. “It made me mad again. The result didn’t change, unfortunately. Obviously, I have to re-watch things to prepare and things like that. But it’s a year ago, you have to move forward at some point.
“We have to go get sweet redemption, right? Win the race we had won.”
NASCAR allowed Dillon to keep the win but took away his playoff eligibility because of how he won the race. Dillon failed to win again.
“NASCAR gets put in a spot occasionally where they are forced to enforce a rule, and depending on how they do that, it will set the tone for the future,” Logano said. “Whether that’s restarts or looking at things like that, and I think all of us drivers, all we want is consistency, and obviously that was pretty far last year. Both moves were – not just the first one, but the second one.
“I think every scenario is probably a little bit different. That one was pretty extreme, so it was probably pretty easy for them to make a call. But everybody sometimes wonders where the limits are. But you also have to ask yourself, what are your limits? What are you willing to do as a human in the racecar?”
The biggest part of the penalty was Dillon losing his postseason eligibility, which the win would have brought. But it also included losing 25 driver and owner points, and his spotter was suspended. It was a moment that brought much debate over what is fair and foul, and how far is too far in trying to win a race.
Hamlin viewed NASCAR’s reaction as a tone setter for the future.
“I think NASCAR drew a line in the sand and said that was too far,” Hamlin said. “I think they’ve been better about drawing the line in the sand on certain things like the right rear hooks we’ve seen over the last year. They are not afraid to make hard decisions, and I think that’s very, very important to the governing of the sport in general, so it’s not a circus. So, I do feel a little bit better about it now than what we did 12 months ago.
“I think that was the first time we’ve seen something like that happen, and NASCAR then had a precedent to set in the sense of what do you do from here? If you let that go, then you certainly open up just a floodgate of crazy things that could happen that would be bad for the relevance of the sport and the legitimacy of the sport. So, I think everyone probably has a little better understanding now because of the ruling. Not saying I agree with it or disagree but you certainly have a better understanding.”
