Several people might have been angry at Austin Dillon for how he won at Richmond last weekend but Kevin Harvick was not one of them. Like Denny Hamlin, the 2014 Cup Series champion blamed NASCAR and the playoffs format for making drivers desperate. Ultimately, it’s ‘win and you’re in’ as far as the playoffs are concerned. For someone as low in on the points table and winless as the Richard Childress Racing star, his last lap move came with exactly the ‘win and you’re in’ mentality, which paid off at others’ expense.
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There has been a lot of debate over the playoff format ever since its inception in 2014. Harvick was the first driver to win the championship in that format. He understands what it’s like and what drivers have to do these days to give themselves a shot at competing for the title. For RCR, 2024 has been a frustrating year, hence the team not paying too much heed to the morality of how the team’s first win of the season came. They have one car in the final 16 and that’s all that counts.
“The system makes you do things that are so far outside of right and wrong that you have to be able to set all that aside, worry about the consequences another day, and you have to do what you have to do to put yourself into Victory Lane. I think when you’re in that position, you know that it’s not the right way to do it but you got to do it,” the Closer said on his podcast.
"The system makes you do things that are so far outside of right and wrong." @KevinHarvick's thoughts on Austin Dillon and the Richmond finish. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/QECFklfm2G
— HarvickHappyHour (@HarvickHappyPod) August 13, 2024
And there might indeed be no consequences, season-wise for the driver of the #3 Chevrolet. NASCAR officially awarded him the win after the race came to an end. The governing body might penalize him for his actionsgoing forward. But for now, Dillon‘s spot in the playoffs is locked in, and that is a point of concern for several drivers.
“We have no real officiating”
Hamlin spoke about the issue during a post-race media interaction at Richmond. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was disappointed but the veteran did a good job of keeping his emotions in check and seeing all sides of the story. He blamed NASCAR for their indecisiveness during such situations. If wrecking two cars to take the win is not penalized and the driver is awarded the win, nobody would take NASCAR seriously as per the 43-year-old.
“I don’t fault him because he is completely desperate,” he told the media. “There’s no guardrails or rules that say don’t do that and there’s no one in the tower that has any problem with it. We’re never ever going to get taken seriously as a sport because we have no real officiating.”
The #11 driver hoped to earn his fourth race win of the season when Dillon spun out Joey Logano on the final lap, followed by an alleged right-rear hook for the JGR veteran. NASCAR’s final call on the fiasco is yet to be announced.
