Sitting 18th ahead of the overtime restart last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, a rough day was about to come to an end for Ty Dillon and his No. 10 Kaulig Racing team.
“I was pouting pretty much in my head inside the car,” Dillon told NBC Sports this week. “We had so much opportunity for this day to be a strong day. Now we’re back to … 18th on this last restart. Man, that’s not going to feel good if this is where we end up.”
But something special happened over the next minute of the race. By the time the checkered flag waved, there was celebratory screaming on Dillon’s radio channel.
The only other team with such excitement on its radio was winner Joey Logano’s team. Many of the other team radio channels were filled with apologies, attaboys or, in some cases, silence after the race.
As the field came to the green flag to begin overtime, disaster nearly struck Dillon.
The outside line — where Dillon was in the ninth row — got bunched coming to the restart zone. Cars hit the brakes. Riley Herbst, restarting in the row ahead of Dillon slowed to avoid slamming the car in front of him.
With what had happened to Dillon and his team in recent weeks, it wouldn’t have been surprising if he had ran into the back of Herbst’s car and been unable to continue.
The previous two races — Bristol and Talladega — proved painful for the team. Dillon ran out of fuel twice at Bristol, including a few laps before the finish. He was set to score his first top-10 finish of the season — and possibly a top-five finish after two cars were disqualified — when he ran out of fuel on the final lap at Talladega.
Now this, the field stacking up on the restart.
“I didn’t hit him,” Dillon said of Herbst. “Luckily, I got stopped. Sometimes when that happens, it kills your momentum. The RPMs drop out and you never get going. Luckily, I was able to keep the RPMs up … and we were able to keep the momentum of the run.”
Dillon’s charge was about to begin.
Cole Custer restarted behind Dillon and moved a lane up after crossing the start/finish line. Dillon mirrored Custer’s move to protect his spot.
“I knew the momentum (Custer) had behind me coming to the start/finish line, which helped me kind of maintain my speed,” Dillon said. “ … I see him going up, so I cover his nose. When I do, Riley hesitates up. I just got a little bit further and that puts me in the spot where, OK, now I can see clean track in front of me. Let’s make this thing happen.”
Entering Turn 1, Dillon heard spotter Joe White tell him: “Top of four. Top of four. Top of four.”
Dillon had three cars underneath him.
It was only about 30 laps earlier when he had one car underneath him entering Turn 1 and that nearly ruined his race.
Brad Keselowski drifted up the track and Dillon said he either got hit from behind or that the car behind was so close it disturbed the air on his car. Either way, Dillon drifted up the track, lost his momentum and fell from 13th to 27th in a few seconds.
That seemed to be it for Dillon, who had overcome a penalty for a crewmember over pit wall too soon on the team’s first pit stop at Lap 22. He ran 30th or worse for much of the next 100 laps. A two-tire pit stop helped him climb into the top 20 but obstacles continued.
A slow pit stop on Lap 221 dropped him from 10th to 18th. Getting forced up the track put him almost back to where he had been stuck earlier in the race.
“Frustration is setting in,” Dillon said, “because you climb this mountain three times already and now you’re running out of laps, you don’t really see how it’s going to get any better, but my team did a good job of keeping me in the game and that’s something we’ve been preaching to each other.”
But it almost got worse.
In Turn 2, the message was the same to Dillon from his spotter. “Still top of four. You’ve got the momentum, though. Top of four.”
It was on the exit of Turn 2 that Carson Hocevar, running beside Ryan Preece, made contact with Preece, causing an accident that brought out the caution on Lap 238.
As Dillon exited the corner after the overtime restart, he had three cars to his inside.
But it’s what William Byron, running ahead of Dillon, did that made the difference between Dillon exiting that corner cleanly or crashing.
“The biggest thing that helps is when (Byron) slides down just a little bit in the middle of the corner,” Dillon said. “I’m able to attach air to the nose of my car, which keeps front grip in it. This whole time I’m trying to keep air on the front of my car to make sure my front tires have feeling in (them). … If (Byron) comes up into my lane in front of me, covers my nose, I’m done. I’m going to have to lift all the way out or probably hit the wall.”
With Byron staying a lane lower, Dillon squeezed out of Turn 2. By the time Dillon reached Turn 4, he had passed Zane Smith, Chris Buescher, Ty Gibbs, Justin Haley and Herbst, putting him 13th.
Todd Gilliland and Byron engaged in a spirited duel ahead of Dillon on the final lap.
“I’m starting to expect maybe these two are going to crash in front of me,” Dillon said. “I need to be checked up. I kind of back my corner up (entering Turn 3) to get a big run, get some air back on my nose, and I think William gets tight over the bump (in Turn 3).”
Dillon was on the inside line, while Byron ran a lane up. Dillon got his car underneath Byron’s car as they headed for the checkered flag.
“I knew he had some splitter damage (from a pit road incident earlier),” Dillon said. “Then it was just a matter of using the air on his door (coming to the finish). We did not hit. There was no contact there, but it was super close.”
Dillon nipped Byron for 12th, triggering an excited and colorful celebration on the team’s radio.
“Nice … work man! P12! Come on!” crew chief Andrew Dickeson shouted on the radio.
“ … Yeah!” Dillon responded.
“What a … restart man,” White said on the radio.
“Way to go boys. That’s something to be proud of,” Dillon radioed.
A few days removed from that emotional moment, Dillon reflects on what the restart and even passing Byron, the points leader, meant.
“The thing about me beating William to the line there, it’s probably insignificant at the end of the day, it’s one point different that’s it … but for me it was a check on my list,” Dillon said. “OK, I feel confident in making that move for when it is for something super important.
“That was just another (element) added to the emotion at the end of the day because you have such an up-and-down day, you really want to leave with some positives.”
After he the finish, there were high-fives and fist bumps for the team.
“This is what we can do,” Dillon said. “And that’s kind of the conversations, like, ‘Hey, let’s remember this moment for the future. This is what we’re capable of in good situations.”
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