Austin Dillon Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Bristol Motor Speedway hosted the first elimination race of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, marking the end of the road for four drivers and their championship aspirations. Several drivers entered the night within striking distance of the top-12 in points, but when Saturday night’s wild outing in Thunder Valley ended, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, and Kevin Harvick were the unlucky drivers to be on the outside looking in. For all four, it would be a combination of mechanical issues, on-track incidents, and justRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor With the conclusion of Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas, the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs is nearly complete, as the first elimination race looms large next weekend. Here’s how the points standings look heading to Bristol Motor Speedway. Only Christopher Bell is safe from whatever carnage may lie ahead at Bristol as the Playoff field is cut from 16 to 12, with the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota accumulating enough points to secure his passage into the nextRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor One race down, nine to go. The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs enter its second week as the title contenders move on to Kansas Speedway looking to punch their ticket into the next round by winning Sunday’s running of the Hollywood Casino 400. Among those drivers in the running for the Bill France Cup, six of them are previous winners at Kansas, with Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Joey Logano having won at the track in recent years. Kansas Speedway hasRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a wild weekend in Daytona to wrap up the regular season and set the 16-driver field for the Playoffs, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to one of the crown jewels on the circuit, Darlington Raceway, for Sunday’s running of the Cook Out Southern 500. A staple of the Cup Series since 1950, there are many elements to Darlington that make it a special track. From the egg-shape of the track that features one end narrower than the other as a result of building the trackRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – With a huge assist from Richard Childress Racing teammate Tyler Reddick after a rain delay of more than three hours, Austin Dillon forced his way into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff and broke Martin Truex Jr.’s heart. Dillon’s victory in Sunday’s rain-delayed Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway—his first of the season and his second at the track—needed the convergence of several different circumstances to fall into place.  After avoiding serious damage in a wreck off Turn 4Read More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Chase Elliott has been declared the winner of Sunday’s M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway after first and second place finishers, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were disqualified following post-race technical inspection. It’s a series-best fourth race victory for the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, who now leads the championship standings by 105-points over Ross Chastain and 111-points over Ryan Blaney. It is the first time this season a race winner has been disqualified. “Yeah,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Executing a decisive bash-and-run on the next-to-last-lap of Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway, Joey Logano wrested the lead from William Byron and ended a NASCAR Cup Series 40-race winless streak dating to March of 2021 at the Bristol Dirt Track. After Logano gave Byron’s Chevrolet a jolt entering Turn 3 on the white-flag lap, Byron shot up the track into the outside wall and fell back to 13th at the finish. Driving a No. 22 Ford sporting the throwback paint scheme of hisRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor TALLADEGA, Ala. – For the second day in a row, it was déjà vu for the No. 3 car. After Jeffrey Earnhardt piloted a Richard Childress Racing No. 3 Chevrolet to second-place in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, Austin Dillon was dealt the same outcome when he climbed behind the wheel of his RCR No. 3 car in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega. Coming down to the checkered flag, Dillon appeared to be well on his way to a top-10 result, running fourth on the bottomRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service One lap. That’s all it took for Ross Chastain to drop a watermelon and raise a trophy in celebration. The 29-year old Floridian led only the last – typically frantic – lap in the GEICO 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway on Sunday to take his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory. Chastain was running third behind Erik Jones and Kyle Larson with one lap remaining. Larson pulled out of line to the outside poised to make a pass for the lead. But, Jones pulledRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – The first night race for the NASCAR Cup Series at Martinsville Speedway was a cakewalk for Hendrick Motorsports—until a late caution sent the race to overtime, that is.  But William Byron survived a final restart and a mistake on the white-flag lap to win Saturday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 at the .526-mile short track.  Byron led 212 of the 403 laps. Teammate and pole winner Chase Elliott led the first 185 circuits, as Hendrick Motorsports surpassed 10,000 laps ledRead More