Heading into Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon had five career NASCAR Cup Series victories, including wins in the crown jewel Daytona 500 (2018) and Coca-Cola 600 (2017).
However, regardless of how bright Dillon shone on any stage, his biggest critics always had a “yeah, but” afterward.
“They’re going to do it either way,” Dillon said of the naysayers after Saturday night’s race at Richmond. “I could win 50 races, and they’ll say my grandpa gave me the ride. They’re not wrong. He did. He did a great job putting me in it. Hopefully I’m paying off on his investment at some point.”
The detractors said Dillon’s Coca-Cola 600 win was a product of fuel strategy. They have also argued that his Daytona 500 win only happened due to contact with Aric Almirola on the final lap.
But what about Dillon’s win at Texas Motor Speedway in 2020? Another strategic masterclass, no doubt, which many felt was the only reason Dillon was in a position to win the race.
Fast forward to 2022, Dillon took his fourth career win in the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, but even that one had a “yeah but” from Dillon’s most passionate haters.
The majority of the field was wiped out in a massive crash in Turn 1 caused by rain on the race track on Lap 138. While Dillon found a way through the carnage and ultimately took the checkered flag, his haters were out in full force once again due to there being only 17 cars running at the end of the race, and only 10 of them were on the lead lap.
Last year at Richmond Raceway, Dillon took the lead legitimately late in the race and was pulling away in the closing laps in what was destined to be the win that would finally silence his critics. Then, a caution with two laps to go sent the race to Overtime.
“Dude, I had a three-second lead last year before the caution came out,” Dillon recalled after Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway.
That night was a rough one for Austin Dillon and the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team, which had experienced a roller coaster of emotions. A sure-fire win was seemingly taken away from them due to a lapped car spinning another lapped car with two laps remaining.
Dillon would ultimately win the race, but it would take a fevered and desperate set of moves on the final lap of the race, which resulted in Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin both crashing out of the event, and it forced NASCAR to remove the Playoff eligibility from Dillon’s win.
Despite Dillon being on a path to cruise to the win prior to the race-altering late-race caution, yet another “yeah but” was born that night.
Then came Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, and there were no “yeah buts” to be found.
Dillon, who came into the race with a chip on his shoulder as he was looking to right last year’s wrong, turned in a career-defining performance. The driver led 107 laps in the 400-lap contest, which is the most laps Dillon has ever led in a NASCAR Cup Series race throughout his 433-race career.
In the end, Dillon had a seemingly insurmountable lead in the closing laps, which proved to be true as the race stayed green over the final 159 laps, and Dillon crossed the finish line ahead of Alex Bowman, the runner-up finisher, by a margin of 2.471 seconds.
“This feels great. This is what I wanted last year,” Dillon explained. “It’s not how I wanted to end it last year. Felt like I had to with my back against the wall kind of deal. This year it just played out the way God wanted it to, I guess.”
While many have enjoyed their chance to dunk on Dillon throughout the years, despite the driver showing a penchant for carrying the Richard Childress Racing team on his back in what has been a trying portion of the team’s history, it’s time to just admit it: Dillon, now a six-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner, is a solid race car driver, and he’s here to stay.
“We’re kind of like a fighter. We don’t go away,” Dillon said. “I think a lot of people think that guy is going to go away at some point. We’re able to claw, chip, and find ways. I like that underdog mentality a little bit. Yeah, no, it feels pretty good. I won two Xfinity championships, quite a few Cup races now. This one is probably one of the best ones because no drama, and it was pretty much a butt kicking there. It was good.”
As the former NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series champion is set to make his sixth appearance in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, there should be no “yeah buts” about whether or not he belongs.
