NASCAR has been on fire since Austin Dillon’s controversial finish to the Cup Series race in Richmond. He crashed into Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin yards away from the finish line and secured the victory for himself. Shocking footage from Dillon’s car soon emerged in which crew instructions asking the driver to purposely wreck Logano and Hamlin can be heard.
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The radio said, “I don’t care how you do it,” before Dillon got into Logano in Turn 3 and then, “Wreck him! Wreck him!” before he cut Hamlin’s right rear. Reporter Jeff Gluck confirmed that Richard Childress’s voice can be heard saying, “Pop pop is proud of you.” Should NASCAR verify these voices, it could carry serious implications for the race result and the team.
I guess the precedent has been set that intentionally wrecking multiple drivers, including the forbidden right hook while your spotter yells “WRECK HIM” is now legal pic.twitter.com/fibMSAy2Rs
— Ryan Pistana (@ryanpistana) August 12, 2024
However, both Childress and Dillon have refused to acknowledge the words that are heard in the footage. The team owner persistently maintained that he never heard the instruction to wreck someone on the radio and that someone could’ve possibly put it in there. He also advised the press that they shouldn’t believe everything they hear on the internet and that if they did, it would make him Santa Claus.
When Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass nudged him further by confirming that the instruction to wreck came from the team spotter, Childress said, “Well, if he did, he did a good job because it won him the race.” He was later found in the media center along with Reporter Matt Weaver who was showing him a relay of the footage.
Dillon presents conflicting words about his intention to wreck
Walking out of his car in victory lane, Dillon admitted that he wrecked the drivers and that he hated to do it. His words went, “I hate to do that, but sometimes you just got to have it… It means a lot. I hate it, but I had to do it.” He also said that he was willing to do whatever it took to win. But when speaking to the press in the post-race conference he changed his voice.
Dillon reiterated, the same as Childress, that there were no instructions that asked him to wreck his fellow drivers. He said that all he could see was red and that he was doing whatever he could to get to the finish line.
NASCAR will now review all the audio and video footage to conclude as to whether or not the Richard Childress Racing crew was in the wrong.
