Austin Dillon is the winner of the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, but is not guaranteed a spot in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. After he intentionally spun Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin in the final moments to win Sunday’s race, NASCAR announced on Wednesday that the 25 points he received as the winner have been nullified.

While he still retains the trophy and prize money, he cannot use the victory to qualify for the playoffs and must win a second time to do so.

The fracas occurred when Dillon was chasing down Logano as they approached the last two corners; Dillon, who was enjoying his best performance of the 2024 season, had failed to hold off Logano at the start of overtime. Too far back to catch him on pace, Dillon continued to accelerate as Logano slowed down in Turn 3, quickly catching him before colliding with his rear bumper.

Logano spun due to the contact and Dillon braked, during which Hamlin attempted to pass both of them on the inside for the lead. Dillon then turned down and hit Hamlin’s right rear, sending him into the wall before escaping with his fifth career Cup Series triumph.

The move was roundly condemned by fans and drivers, with Logano describing Dillon as a “piece of crap” who “sucked his whole career.” When a penalty was not immediately imposed, Hamlin expressed his doubt that NASCAR would punish Dillon.

After three days of review, the sanctioning body ultimately decided that a points deduction was justified. He is the first Cup driver to retain the win but lose the points that come with it since Kevin Harvick lost his Las Vegas and Texas victories in 2018 to illegal parts, a status called “encumbered” in NASCAR’s vocabulary; NASCAR subsequently implemented disqualifications for winners that take away wins if they fail inspection.

“In our view, that crossed the line without a doubt,” explained Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer. “Our sport has been based on strong emotions, it’s been based off ‘win and you’re in,’ but anything that we feel like from the sanctioning body that has crossed the line from a standpoint that compromises the integrity of our playoff format as well as our championship, we are going to get involved.

“If you look at everything that happened as the #3 (Dillon) and the #22 (Logano) entered Turn 3 and then on the exit of four with the #3 and the #11 (Hamlin), the total body of work, the information that we gathered through all of that led us to the conclusion that we came to on the penalties.”

Further exacerbating matters was the reveal that the #3’s spotter Brandon Benesch had openly rooted for Dillon to “wreck” Logano over their radio communications. Dillon‘s grandfather and team owner Richard Childress denied Benesch’s remarks ever occurred before coming to his defence once he was informed of their existence. Benesch was suspended for the next three races on Wednesday, and is eligible for reinstatement at Atlanta in September.

Richard Childress Racing intend to appeal the penalty.

“This is not something that that NASCAR really wants to get in the middle of,” Sawyer continued. “For years, we’ve allowed our drivers and we will continue to allow them to race.

“Every one of the drivers and those national series garages – Cup level, Xfinity level and Truck level—they understand where the line is. They may ask from time to time where is the line.

“I guarantee you when you walk through there and you ask them, they will know where it is. We just felt like in this case, we needed to let them know that we know where the line is as well and this is not something that we’re going to tolerate.”

Logano did not get off scot-free either, though it was not due to his harsh criticism of Dillon. NASCAR fined him USD$50,000 (roughly €45,410) for doing a burnout down pit road after the race without stopping, nearly colliding with fans and RCR team personnel in the area. An official ordered him to stop and berated him, though Logano accepted the ruling and Team Penske does not intend to appeal.

Dillon once again in a NASCAR hole

With the 25 points from the win void, Dillon is once again outside the top 30 in the championship in 31st. The victory initially propelled him from 32nd to 26th in the regular season standings, though 13th among those eligible for the playoffs as the lowest-ranking race winner.

Under NASCAR‘s current format, drivers are automatically assured a playoff berth if they win a race as long as they have run every race (or receive a waiver). Prior to 2023, drivers must also be in the top 30 to qualify. As such, Dillon still has a shot to make it but must win any of Michigan, Daytona, or Darlington; he is a two-time Daytona winner, even qualifying for the 2022 playoffs by winning there when it was the final round of the regular NASCAR season.

The penalty also means Chris Buescher is once again slotted in as the 16th and final driver to make the playoffs if the regular season ended after Richmond. He and Ross Chastain are tied in points, though the former has the tiebreaker with his two runner-up finishes at Phoenix and Kansas while the latter’s best run is a fourth at Las Vegas.