Austin Dillon won at Richmond Raceway for the second year in a row, this time doing it, as crew chief Richard Boswell said over the radio, “the right way.”
Dillon led 107 laps and won the Cook Out 400 on Aug. 16, locking himself into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs after a lengthy battle with Ryan Blaney and a final green flag pit cycle.
“I really wanted that one,” Dillon said in a post-race interview with USA Network. “Last year hurt really bad, just going through the whole process of it. This one is so sweet. I love Richmond.”
“God has timing and his timing is the best timing. I’m glad to have my wife and kids here to celebrate with us. It’s so sweet. My dad prayed with me before the race … Everyone of these is so special. My grandfather, for all he’s put up with, believes in me because there’ve been some ups and downs. It could have been easy to change drivers in this No. 3 car. This feels really good.”
Dillon revealed he’s not racing at 100%, saying he didn’t feel great and suffered a broken rib three weeks ago. Then again, Richmond has been the site of his two wins in the Cup Series because of his ability to handle tire management, a key factor Saturday with fall off being something teams wrestled with all night.
“I probably am the slowest to get going on some of these tracks when it comes to high grip,” Dillon said. “When it comes to these places and taking care of your stuff, I’ll go against the best of them.”
Alex Bowman finished second but found himself bumped to the cut line for the Cup Series playoffs with one regular season race remaining.
Tyler Reddick, who finished 34th after an accident during stage two, is 89 points above the cutline with Bowman holding a 60-point advantage to Chris Buescher. The rest of the field below Buescher will need to win at Daytona International Speedway to lock up a playoff berth.
“It’s certainly really stressful on a lot of fronts,” Bowman said post-race on the USA Network. “With how that race normally goes, it’s about a must-win at that point because I think you’re most likely going to have a new winner. You just have to execute and try to win the race.”
Ryan Blaney recorded his best career finish at Richmond, taking third ahead of Penske teammates Joey Logano in fourth and Austin Cindric in fifth.
Kyle Larson, Daniel Suarez, Josh Berry, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top 10.
The No. 60 Ford of Ryan Preece led the first 60 laps, but a split in pit strategy left him as a sitting duck on old tires for Hamlin and Reddick. Hamlin scrubbed the wall off turn 2 running side-by-side with Reddick, allowing the No. 45 Toyota to take second and the lead in the same lap.
Reddick cruised to a stage one win ahead of Bubba Wallace, Hamlin, Dillon and Cindric.
Stage two would not go nearly as well for the owner-driver duo from 23XI Racing. Hamlin had a slow stop and sped on pit road, drawing a penalty that forced him to restart in the back. After working his way back up to the top 10, another slow stop during stage two cost him more track position.
Reddick lost the lead on the stage-two restart to teammate Wallace. On lap 181, Reddick spun after a bump from Daniel Suarez sent Ty Gibbs up the track into the No. 45. It was the race’s first caution for the incident, but far from its last.
Cody Ware spun shortly after the following restart, leading to another restart where Chase Briscoe spun after contact from Kyle Busch that collected several cars. Busch also collected Chase Elliott, who finished 38th for his first DNF of the season after a head on hit into the frontstretch wall. Justin Haley finished 37th with terminal damage as well.
Wallace led the way throughout, winning stage two ahead of Daniel Suarez, Ryan Blaney, Austin Dillon and Alex Bowman.
Pit road was where most of the drama stemmed from in the final stage. Dillon took the lead on the initial restart, going three wide with Wallace and Michael McDowell after McDowell took just two tires.
After the pit cycle started by Carson Hocevar, the first round of pit stops for the stage saw Bell penalized for a commitment line violation. Wallace lost his left front tire on his pit stop, then was penalized when he stopped in the No. 19 pit box to have the tire reattached. Wallace finished 28th.
Blaney took the lead from Hocevar on lap 304, then Dillon caught Blaney and raced side-by-side for several laps. It wasn’t until Hocevar, on fresher tires, caught the duo and forced them to move up a lane that Dillon was finally able to clear Blaney.
Dillon immediately hit pit road with Blaney following suit four laps later. Once the final round of green flag pit stops finished, Dillon cycled back to the lead with a sizable advantage to Blaney.
With 16 laps to go, Bowman took over second from Blaney and began cutting further into Dillon’s lead until catching lapped traffic in the closing laps.
Hocevar’s decision to go for three-stops over the final stage, plus some slow pit stops, resulted in him finishing 15th. Preece, the polesitter, finished 35th.
Cup Series Cook Out 400 Results at Richmond
The Cup Series’ final regular season race, the Coke Zero Sugar 400, is set for 7:30 p.m. ET Aug. 23 at Daytona. Coverage on NBC is set to begin at 7 p.m.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.