Dillon penalty boxes in NASCAR, Logano lucky his isn’t worse

On Sunday night at Richmond International Raceway, Austin Dillon wrecked his way to a thrilling season-saving victory that returned him to the winner’s circle for the first time in nearly two years and also earned him a coveted spot in the NASCAR Playoffs … until it didn’t. On Wednesday, NASCAR announced that Dillon would keep the win but it would no longer count toward his postseason eligibility. The sanctioning body also suspended his spotter for three races and fined Joey Logano, one of Dillon’s two in-race victims, $50,000 for angrily weaving through people on the postrace pit lane on his way to express his displeasure to Dillon’s crew.

It’s a lot to process. A lot of people are angry and have been since Sunday night. So, who better to sift through the physical, emotional and financial wreckage than Marty & McGee?

McGee: First things first. What did you think of the Richmond finish over the weekend before all this other news and podcasts and penalties happened?

Marty: I thought it was desperate by Dillon, but he was in a desperate position. And given the context of the rules under which he was playing in the moment, I don’t blame him one bit for doing what he did.

McGee: Agreed.

Marty: He is the heir of his grandfather’s racing organization that has had an awful year, competitively irrelevant, very rarely made any speed. And for one of the first times all year long, you’re actually running up front all night. And if you go back and look at the practice speeds, he was making speed all weekend, so he had a legitimately good race car. This is an opportunity for him to supplant other drivers that were dozens of positions ahead of him in the point standings and guarantee himself, in that moment, the opportunity for his team to get all the exposure, any bonus money, any escalators, of being a playoff team at the highest level of American motorsport. So, he did what he had to do. And there is a hell of a long line of sinners who’ve done the same thing and been celebrated for it.

McGee: There have always been those racers who have never received the benefit of the doubt, and Dillon is one of those drivers. It has been that way his entire career. I have written columns about it. I’ve argued with people on Twitter about it. Those are the people that I’m talking about. And among those people are race car drivers, people who race against him on the weekends. “Well, he’s no Dale Earnhardt, and he doesn’t deserve the No. 3!” But I would also argue that had Dale Earnhardt done what Austin Dillon did at Richmond, then they would still be replaying it on all of NASCAR social media, and it would be on a loop in the NASCAR Hall of Fame because who you are makes a huge difference on how things are perceived. Speaking of perception, your perception of the penalties? Dillon was in the NASCAR Playoffs, and now he’s not.

Marty: I think we won’t know a real answer for a while. I think this has to play itself out a little bit to really have a true understanding of its magnitude. I understand NASCAR’s positioning because of the blatant nature of the decision Dillon made. All that said, I personally do not agree with the decision.

McGee: Me, either. We now have a ripple effect that I’m not sure NASCAR is going to want.

Marty: I think that he was playing under the rules that were in place. Denny Hamlin is upset and has a right to be. Sorry. Logano is upset and has a right to be. Sorry. But those are the rules, and NASCAR will say, “We didn’t take his win away!” but what they took away was more valuable than the trophy, and so for me, I don’t like the decision on NASCAR’s part. They will say they are setting a precedent that you can’t do this. Well, I think it’s based on making sure this doesn’t happen in Phoenix at the end of the year. Well, tell them before you go into the competitive arena at Phoenix: “If you do that and we deem it purposeful, you ain’t getting the title.”

McGee: Absolutely. There are contextual penalties. That exists in any sport. You talk to any football official, and they will tell you that there’s a personal foul they won’t call in the second quarter that they will absolutely call with two minutes to go in a game, when the stakes are higher and when they have warned the players multiple times during the game or even during the season, “If you guys keep doing this, it’s going to cost you.”

Marty: Context matters.

McGee: Hell yes it does, and people who like to go back to the old days, that’s how Bill France Jr. did it when he was in charge. He would walk in and say, “All right, this is how this is going to be today, and y’all better not do this.” And then there were also times where he would say, “OK, y’all do everything you want today.” And it doesn’t feel like that context existed in this decision. You wanted to set a precedent and you’ve done it, but now you are also going to have to defend it when you don’t do this in certain situations going forward.

Marty: I was in the truck for 11 hours on Wednesday, just the dog and me, and I was going back through NASCAR history in my head, and some of those moments you’re discussing, whether it is Jeff Gordon and Rusty Wallace in 1998 …

McGee: At Richmond!

Marty: Kyle Busch dumping Dale Jr. to win in 2008 …

McGee: At Richmond!

Marty: I know playoff positions weren’t up for grabs at that moment, but it still speaks to the broader scope and magnitude of NASCAR’s decision or Dillon’s decision, that are wider-reaching and deeper. But I just like it. I think that those types of moments are what built the sport. And quite frankly, because of that finish, NASCAR was on “SportsCenter” immediately on Sunday night, right? NASCAR hadn’t been on “SportsCenter” since six months ago when Ryan McGee was doing a live shot in a motorized recliner at the Daytona 500.

McGee: It goes back to the 1979 Daytona 500 and “the fight.” Publicly, NASCAR fined Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers for “actions detrimental to the sport.” Privately, Bill Jr. flew them down to Daytona, thanked them for what they did and never charged them a dime.

Marty: Then there is the other half of this Richmond story. You have every right to be pissed off if you are Logano, but when you’re on the pit lane and it’s the end of a race — and you and I both lived it millions of times — it’s chaos. There are people running everywhere. Joey lost his temper, but you have to make sure, as furious as he was and had a right to be, you have to maintain your composure much better than he did. There is zero excuse for driving down the pit lane through people. Zero.

McGee: He’s lucky he’s not in jail, and we are all lucky that people aren’t in the hospital. A lot of fans have said to me, “Well, those people shouldn’t have been out there!” No, there’s a rhythm to that, a postrace routine that has been in place forever. Regardless of whether they should be out there, they were where they were, right? There’s safety in that routine: Cars stay to the right, people stay to the left, and those people aren’t allowed to go all the way out there until the cars come to a complete stop. As soon as Logano pulled left and started driving through people, that routine and rhythm was altered. That’s why that family was standing there; they were standing in a safe spot. There weren’t supposed to be race cars there. People have said to me, “Well, yeah, what if his brakes had gone out?” Irrelevant, because they wouldn’t have been allowed out there until the cars had stopped.

Marty: He just knows better than that.

McGee: Yes, he does, because his family does that same routine, too. That, to me, was even more egregious than what took place on a racetrack, because a race car driver knows what he’s getting into. A NASCAR official and a pit crew member and a mom holding a baby, they know where they are, but they also know where they are standing is supposed to be safe. He created a very, very unsafe environment.

Marty: He’s been a Cup Series driver forever, more than half his life, and you have a right, in my opinion, to march your ass into Victory Lane and bust Austin Dillon right in the mouth. That’s you and him.

McGee: Not you and innocent bystanders.

Marty: I wonder what will happen if this happens again, and how will NASCAR rule it? Is it now black and white? Dillon hooking Hamlin and running into Logano, that was not subjective. He did both like a bat out of hell to give his team that chance to make the playoffs. A lot of calls coming to the checkers are subjective, though. So, if you’re a team who is 20th in points, or hell, 18th in points, and you’re right outside that threshold, and you’re door to door, coming to the checkers, and you’re on the outside, you’re leaning on that door and somebody gets dumped, what’s NASCAR going to do? Well, now they are in the box.

McGee: A box they built themselves.