In one of the wildest finishes in the history of Richmond Raceway, Austin Dillon locked himself into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs after a last corner melee.
On the race’s overtime restart, it was Joey Logano who took the race lead. However, going into turn 3 on the final lap, Dillon hit Logano, sending the No. 22 spinning and opening up a lane for Denny Hamlin. However, Dillon hooked Hamlin in the race’s final hundred feet, sending Hamlin into the wall and putting Dillon in victory lane.
Tyler Reddick finished in the runner-up spot, with Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Hamlin rounding out the top five. Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Carson Hocevar, Chase Elliott and Daniel Suarez made up the rest of the top 10.
It was Hamlin who led the first 45 laps of the race, but a fellow Toyota in Bell took advantage of lapped traffic to catch and pass his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate for the race lead. Despite a tense moment with Justin Haley, Bell would go on to win a relatively uneventful stage one that saw both Wallace and Chris Buescher gain crucial stage points in their quest to make the Cup Series playoffs. The stage victory was Bell’s 10th of the 2024 season.
While Bell got off of pit road first, he hit the No. 43 of Erik Jones after exiting his pit stall, incurring damage on the left front of his No. 20. Bell wasn’t the only driver to have trouble on the first round of pit stops, however, as Wallace was once more plagued by pit crew issues, losing seven spots on the first stop of the day.
Suarez and Michael McDowell were the first drivers to put on the softer option tires. The move paid off after the restart for the No. 99 of Suarez, as he quickly made his way into the top five. McDowell would also quickly move up, driving his way from 28th to inside the top 20 in just 15 laps.
Hamlin would take the lead from Bell on the restart, but Suarez’s option tires catapulted him to the lead on lap 93 as McDowell passed Ty Gibbs to move inside the top 15. The veteran moved into the top 10 by lap 101 and continued to easily pass his competitors to move up to seventh.
Chase Briscoe would be the first driver to pit under green on lap 122, with second-place Bell choosing to pit right after. Austin Cindric turned out to be the next taker of the option tire, while Suarez would choose to take off the option tire and put the prime tires back on. Josh Berry also decided to put the option tires on, though the majority of the field opted to stick with the prime tires.
Buescher would fall outside of the top 25 after green flag pit stops, as the No. 17 crew failed to get the left-front lug nut on Buescher’s Ford Mustang tight.
While Larson ran long, Bell took the lead back with Suarez in tow. Larson and Reddick would both pit on lap 150.
Martin Truex Jr.‘s second stop of stage two was slow, as the No. 19 nearly went on the track with a loose wheel. While Truex didn’t lose a wheel, he fell out of the top 10 before recovering to finish 11th in stage two.
Suarez would take the lead from Reddick, while Bell would quickly pounce on Reddick to take the second spot. Suarez went on to win the stage with Bell finishing close behind in second. Wallace was the highest-finishing playoff bubble driver in the stage, earning three stage points with an eighth-place finish.
Bell would beat Suarez off pit road, with most of the field deciding to put the option tire on at the start of of stage three. While Bell cleared Hamlin for the lead on the restart, the middle of the pack saw a chaotic few laps, with Suarez nearly getting turned on the backstretch. Suarez’s prime tires were no match for a field largely on the softer option tire, and the No. 99 dropped through the field like a rock early in the run.
Truex radioed in an engine issue on lap 249, saying that his No. 19 Toyota was low on power. Truex’s night would come to an end shortly after, with crew chief James Small telling Truex to shut his engine off on lap 253.
“It hiccupped once down the backstretch and started missing,” Truex told NBC Sports’ Marty Snyder. “It self-destructed pretty quick.”
Green flag pit stops commenced with Larson and William Byron, with Hamlin and other leaders quickly following. Most of the field opted to put the prime tire back on their cars.
The biggest pit road blow of the night on pit road came via a speeding penalty, as Bell was caught speeding for the third consecutive Richmond race. After serving his penalty, Bell fell outside the top 15.
Hamlin inherited the lead from his JGR teammate, with Logano in tow right behind him. It wouldn’t take long for Dillon to join the party, however, as the No. 3 Chevrolet would catch Logano, though a loose chassis condition prevented Dillon from passing Logano on his first attempt. A few laps later, however, Dillon would get around the No. 22, catching Hamlin with 70 laps to go.
Logano kicked off the final cycle of green flag pit stops, with Larson, McDowell, Hamlin and Chastain quickly following suit. Dillon came in with 67 laps to go, and with Hamlin undercutting Dillon, both he and Logano got around Dillon to retake the top two spots.
Cook Out 400 Results
It didn’t take long for Dillon to once more get around Logano and catch Hamlin, however, as the driver of the No. 3 followed in Hamlin’s tire tracks for much of the race’s final run.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.