People can hate on Austin Dillon all they want for what he did on the last NASCAR Cup Series lap at Richmond Raceway last weekend, but the reality is that no one can really blame him for it.
In similar situations, many who have bashed the Richard Childress Racing driver would’ve done the exact same thing — or maybe even worse. Dillon was attempting to not only save his season by throwing up a Hail Mary to make the playoffs but also earn his race team roughly $2 million.
Denny Hamlin said on his podcast Actions Detrimental that the difference between finishing 16th in Cup points and 32nd is about $2 million. What would you do if you could make that kind of dough for the team and the men and women who work endless hours to get you out on the racetrack every week?
Dillon has been made out to be the villain when he is really a victim of the system. The win-and-you’re-in playoff format is what made the whole scenario happen, and that’s why its era needs to come to a close.
Prior to the current playoff format, started in 2014, Dillon would’ve accepted second place on the night after Joey Logano beat him on the final restart. Or maybe he still sends it into the corner to spin Logano, but I can’t imagine him right-rearing Hamlin after that.
But the ultra-aggressive driving isn’t even the worst thing that could’ve come out of Richmond. Had NASCAR not ruled that the win wouldn’t give Dillon playoff eligibility, a driver currently 31st in points would be able to compete for a championship.
Plus, Dillon is solid at the drafting tracks. He could’ve hypothetically won at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the first round and Talladega Superspeedway in the second round. Then, a driver who was outside the top 30 in points would be in the Round of 8. He was just super fast at Richmond — perhaps the speed carries over to Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway and Dillon is your 2024 Cup champion.
People think letting someone wrecking two people to make the playoffs would hurt NASCAR’s integrity? The scenario I just described would annihilate every ounce of integrity the series has. NASCAR would be the joke of the sports world.
That’s why the premise of win-and-you’re-in is so ridiculous. Can you imagine Major League Baseball telling the historically bad Chicago White Sox, which is 29-93 so far this season, that if the team wins a game at any point next week, it gets a spot in the playoffs? MLB fans would riot.
Playoffs in any sport should consist of the best teams. It’s not some charity where you let one down-on-its-luck team hit a lottery to get out of the grave it’s dug for itself.
NASCAR shouldn’t even have playoffs. It existed just fine without it for 55 years. Yeah, there were years when the championship was clinched with a few races to go, but would that really happen in the Next Gen era, when the field is as even as ever?
The top four in the regular season standings are currently separated by 21 points. The top six by just 78 points. Imagine watching those guys duke it out these next 13 weeks for the Cup championship. It would be filled with raw, organic drama, and the championship would have tons of integrity once again.
But I realize CEO Jim France, President Steve Phelps and the rest of the NASCAR powers that be would rather drop a nuke on Daytona than get rid of the playoffs.
So instead, let’s keep the playoffs as they are but have it so only the top 16 in points qualify. The cut line battle has been riveting this year. What’s wrong with just having that with no fluky strings attached to it?
And I get that the biggest problem with the Latford system, what NASCAR ran from 1975-2003, is that it didn’t award winners enough. So a super-consistent driver could win a race or two all year but nickel-and-dime the field to death to win the title.
There needs to be a middle ground between that and a race winner getting way too much, as it is currently. My solution? The race winner should get double the points of second place.
Not including stage points, race winners currently get 40 points to second’s 35. Give the race winner 70 points instead, plus stage points.
That way, getting one win wouldn’t completely salvage a bad season. But it would provide a huge boost in the standings to get a driver pointed in the right direction.
For example, if Dillon was awarded 30 more points for his Richmond win, he’d be 26th in points instead of 31st. Add back the 25 points he got fined for the finish and he’d be just two points out of 25th. That’s a heck of a jump for having one great race, but it doesn’t completely change the course of his season.
Austin Cindric is 20th in points now, but his win at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway has him locked into the playoffs. But what if it didn’t lock him in and instead paid him 30 more points? He’d be 18th in the standings and only 46 points below the cut line. Again, it doesn’t gift him a spot in the playoffs, but the Gateway win would’ve helped him to be in the conversation.
The win-and-you’re-in format was fun for a while, but it’s just too gimmicky. So is a one-race championship, but I’ll die on that hill a different day.
Despite what the folks in Daytona believe, motorsports is a sport, not entertainment. Please stop treating NASCAR like it’s a soap opera. The 16 best drivers on the season should get to compete for the title, not so-and-so’s evil twin brother who mysteriously entered the picture last week by having an affair with the good guy’s wife before winning at the Darlington Raceway in triple overtime to make the playoffs. Leave that stuff for the daytime dramas.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.