Richmond 2024 still “one of my favorite wins”

Austin Dillon returns to Richmond Raceway this weekend as the defending winner, but there is far more to the story than that. Dillon was kicked out of the playoffs because of the way he won that race, intentionally wrecking Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin on his way to claiming a controversial checkered flag.

But Dillon still remembers it fondly, saying this week, “It was still a big day and I’ll always remember it as one of my favorite wins. We got the trophy, just not the NASCAR Playoffs spot. That part was a struggle, and I hate it for RCR, but this year, going back, I definitely want to go out there and try to win again, but this time lock ourselves into the Playoffs. We had a dominant car last year and really came on strong at the end. We had a multiple-second lead and passed two of the best to do it, so that’s pretty cool.”

And just like one year ago, Dillon enters Richmond in a must-win situation. He has a good track record for getting these late summer victories. Along with his 2024 Richmond win, he also won the regular season finale at Daytona in 2022. That was the last time the driver of the No. 3 took part in the playoffs, ending the year 11th in the standings.

“I’m pumped to get to Richmond Raceway in the No. 3 Chevrolet,” said Dillon. “I’ve been excited about that one all year. I just want to get there and see if we can be as successful as last year. We had a two second lead with however many laps remaining in the race, drove past Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano, and the car was just really solid.

“Unfortunately, an untimely caution put us in a difficult position. We worked a little bit this week in the SIM just to see how it correlated, and I thought it correlated very well. We will go there and give it our best shot. We feel like it could be a good opportunity to put us into the NASCAR Playoffs with just two races remaining until the cutoff.”

Austin Dillon, Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

Dillon has five career wins, and three of them came at the next two tracks on the 2025 NASCAR schedule.

That fact is not lost on the third-generation racer, who said he is “pretty confident at both of them. We’re going to give it our all and try to build momentum and keep building it. Truthfully, we want to win to get into the NASCAR Playoffs, but also, we need to move ourselves into a better place in the point standings because we’ve had a lot of unfortunate events go on that kept moving us down in the point standings.

“We want to be a top-20 team no matter what, so we have to work our way to the front with the remaining races.”