Austin Dillon’s Richmond win officially won’t get him into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Richard Childress Racing’s final appeal of the penalty assessed to Dillon was denied on Monday by NASCAR’s final appeals officer. Dillon’s win on Aug. 11 qualified him for the playoffs after he wrecked both Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin before the finish line. But NASCAR said days after the race that Dillon’s actions were illegal and stripped him of the playoff berth that came with the win.
Dillon is still officially recognized as the winner of the race even though the team’s appeal wasn’t enough to change NASCAR’s decision via the appeals process.
In a statement, NASCAR’s final appeals officer Bill Mullis said “the data presented today from SMT and IDAS systems indicate that more likely than not a rule violation did occur at Richmond Raceway on 8-11-24 by the No. 3 RCR car on the last lap of the race.”
In its penalty to Dillon, NASCAR had cited its rules allowing itself broad discretion to determine what actions detrimental to racing are. RCR’s initial appeal of Dillon’s penalty was denied last week.
The playoff picture with one regular-season race to go
Dillon’s scenario heading into the final race of the regular season at Darlington is now crystal clear: he has to win the race to make the playoffs. Dillon is currently 29th in the points standings and is mathematically eliminated from making the 16-driver field via points.
The upholding of the penalty is also big news for drivers like Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain. Thirteen drivers have wins that have clinched them spots in the playoffs after Harrison Burton’s surprise win at Daytona on Saturday night. That leaves three spots for winless drivers unless a driver without a win gets a victory at Darlington and earns one of the three remaining spots.
The best-positioned driver of the winless bunch is Martin Truex Jr. He’s currently ninth in the overall points standings and is 58 points ahead of Wallace.
In between Truex and Wallace are Ty Gibbs and Chris Buescher. Gibbs is 19 points back of Truex and Bueshcer is 18 points back of Gibbs — and 21 points ahead of Wallace.
Wallace, meanwhile, is the first driver outside the playoff bubble entering Darlington and is six points ahead of Chastain. If Wallace and Chastain don’t win on Sunday night, they need to score enough points to leapfrog one of the winless drivers ahead of them. And only Gibbs and Buescher are at any risk given Truex’s healthy lead over Wallace.
Without a win getting him into the playoffs at Darlington, Dillon is in line to match the worst season of his career in 2024 barring a late-season turnaround. After qualifying for the playoffs five times from 2016-2022, Dillon was 29th a season ago with just one top five and seven top 10s. His Richmond victory is currently his only top five in 2024 and he has just three top-10 finishes with an average finish that’s 1.4 spots worse than it was a season ago.
