What Happened?
Austin Dillon played the tire strategy right to win his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway over runner-up Alex Bowman on Saturday, Aug. 16. Team Penske completed the top five with Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric finishing third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
This is Dillon’s sixth career Cup win and has locked him into this year’s playoffs.
William Byron‘s 12th-place finish has also clinched this year’s Cup Series regular season title.
What Really Happened?
Like many of you, I was dreading going into this weekend.
Amid the turmoil and controversy of the Next Gen car that has accumulated after months of lackluster racing across short tracks and road courses alike, I was expecting another crushingly boring race at Richmond to continue that painful and increasingly tedious narrative.
I am so happy I was wrong.
Among the roster of popular short tracks on the Cup Series calendar, Richmond has always seemed like an afterthought in the back of my mind. I am reminded of its place on the schedule only perhaps a week before the annual event that’s held there.
On Saturday, that 0.75-mile D-shaped oval demanded my, and many other race fans, attention back.
A constantly wearing tire, the catalyst of new rivalries and an underdog winner to boot made this year’s Richmond race a surprising breath of fresh air amid what has been a hazy 2025 season. In fact, its multi-lane grooves, worn tires and varying strategies made it slightly reminiscent of Bristol Motor Speedway’s spring event in 2024 – a short track race many believe to be the best of the Next Gen era.
Because indeed, like that event, it was a reminder of what Cup Series short track racing used to look like.
Plus, it could not have come at a better time for the historic Virginia short track. Once a staple of the NASCAR schedule that dubbed it ‘The Action Track,’ love for Richmond has waned in recent years. With Cup events that featured low amounts of passing and strategies, you can kind of see why.
Not to mention its loss of a Cup date that has relegated the circuit to only one race a year. Even worse, with more popular short tracks such as Bristol and Martinsville Speedway still holding two dates and the revival of old, yet popular venues like North Wilkesboro Speedway and Rockingham Speedway, even Richmond’s sole NASCAR race date was beginning to be put into question.
However, being the only short track on the schedule that actually seems to grant drivers the ability to pass for the lead has made many rethink its one-race-a-year schedule, myself included.
And maybe the most important aspect of all, you Richmond fans showed up to support a track that needed it more than maybe any other.
The result was a spectacular race that reminded NASCAR fans that short track racing culture is not merely an aesthetic, but something that is still very much alive and well even with a spec car and even at a track that has been given the cold shoulder in recent years.
All of which, was in front of a sold-out crowd.
Virginia race fans, I see you, I thank you and I’m sorry for doubting your track.
Who Stood Out?
What a difference a year makes.
One year ago, the Richard Childress Racing driver was the center of one of the most controversial finishes in NASCAR history. Dillon, who was en route to win last year’s Richmond Cup race before a sudden overtime restart halted his victory, wrecked both Logano and Denny Hamlin in the final turn of the race in perhaps the ugliest fashion.
The result was days of heated debate of whether Dillon should be penalized or have the win stripped away. In the end, the driver of the No. 3 kept the win but his playoff berth was nullified. The team failed to make the playoffs as a result, and it left a stain on what should have been an otherwise impressive victory for the underdog team.
Then, this year, he simply did it again. No controversy or penalties required.
For a driver that has only six wins now in his 11 full-time years of Cup Series racing, asking Dillon to replicate the rare dominance he showed in 2024 with no post-race issues was a tall order.
Yet on lap 242, he made a heroic leap to the lead at the beginning of the race’s final stage. It was then that everyone remembered what the No. 3 was capable of only one year ago.
However, his victory wasn’t totally secure until the final green flag stop of the race while battling Blaney for the lead with only 61 laps to go. Dillon, after wrestling away the lead from Blaney, came to pit road only one lap later for his final stop of the night. When Blaney finally followed suit only four laps later, Dillon’s lead was nearly eight seconds ahead of the No. 12 thanks to his fresher tires.
While Blaney and eventually Bowman did cut the gap down to a little over two seconds, Dillon held his lead for the final stint to not only win his playoff berth, but this time, actually keep it, too.
Who Fell Flat?
Dillon ended the day as the main story with his win and securing of another playoff entry, but going into Saturday, it felt like the same story was going to be said of RFK Racing driver Ryan Preece.
Preece, who won second career Cup pole on Friday afternoon, was set to have what may have been his best chance at a first Cup win than he ever has had.
For the first stage and a half, he was still on track to do it, too. The No. 60 Ford had saved an extra set of tires by staying out during the entire first stage, relinquishing the stage win in exchange for a set of fresh rubber to use at the end of the race – an extremely valuable commodity to have at a track that was shredding tires all night.
The Connecticut racer was on a three-stop strategy in stage two while the rest of the field was only planning to enter pit road twice. However, multiple cautions at the end of the segment forced Preece to pit with the rest of the field while still behind in track position. The No. 60 pitted near the beginning of the final stage and left pit road in the back of the top 20.
A complaint of failing brakes and poor track position took away any hope of the RFK driver to make up for lost ground. Preece finished 35th, a whole four laps down and now a whopping 94 points behind the playoff cut line heading into the regular season’s final race and in a must-win scenario to make the postseason.
While Preece is in a desperate situation to make this year’s playoffs, 23XI Racing’s top two drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick are not.
That said, they surely had the best chance of at least winning one more time on Saturday night.
Both Reddick and Wallace won stages one and two, respectively, in a show of 23XI dominance never seen before. Really, it was the first time the team has ever swept the first two stages of a race.
Yet it all literally went up in smoke early on when Reddick was turned on lap 182 after contact from Daniel Suarez sent Ty Gibbs colliding into the No. 45 Toyota.
Reddick didn’t see the lead again, and while he secured his playoff spot on points, he finished 34th and four laps down.
All the while, his teammate Wallace continued to fly the 23XI banner while leading for a race-high 123 laps. It was only the second time in Wallace’s career he has led more than 100 laps in a Cup race.
However, the Brickyard 400 winner lost the lead to Dillon near the beginning of the final stage and faded while running second. On the next pit stop, however, his fade became a plummet when he lost a wheel while exiting pit road.
The driver of the No. 23 thought quickly and received service from the pseudo-teammate No. 19 Toyota team only a few pit boxes ahead – an act that, while against the NASCAR rule book, is much better than losing two laps and having crew members suspended only two weeks before the playoff beginning.
Alas, the result was not much better. Wallace had to serve a pass-through penalty. On a small track like Richmond, an unscheduled pit stop can be devastating with losing laps off the lead.
Wallace, despite his dominant speed, finished 28th, two laps down.
Paint Scheme of the Race
There weren’t many original or new paint schemes making their debuts on the Virginia short track this week, and the ones that did are a dull all black design.
It’s not often I find myself reverting to choosing a scheme that’s been run before, and it’s even less so when it’s a scheme that’s over a year old.
That said, there is no denying that Ross Chastain and Trackhouse Racing put together a genius design for their underwear brand Jockey regarding the see-through scheme.
If seeing Chastain in nothing but his undies wasn’t hilariously horrifying enough, wait until you see his new fire suit to match.
Yikes.
Even better, Chastain wasn’t in the underwear craze alone this week, but Trackhouse’s media team did what it does best and got his pit crew in on the half-naked action as well.
That’s pure gold.
What’s Next?
The final race of this year’s regular season.
The Cup Series returns to Daytona International Speedway for its annual 400-mile race that will finally set the field for this year’s postseason.
Coverage for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 will be presented live Saturday, Aug. 23 on NBC at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT