Richard Childress Racing star Austin Dillon was cleared by NASCAR for the crash involving Brad Keselowski at the Nashville Superspeedway. NASCAR’s Senior Director of Racing Communications, Amanda Ellis, came out and detailed the reason why Dillon wasn’t penalized.
The NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville saw multiple crashes, some because of brake failures, others because of the tricky pit entry catching out those running the high line.
The tensions between Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski began on Lap 145 when the Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing driver had to avoid the No. 47, who was coming into the pits, and the No. 6 had to fade onto the high line. While coming back to the low line, Keselowski caught the nose of Dillon’s RCR, spinning him around.
Fortunately, the RCR driver was able to keep the car away from the barriers and continued. Forty-seven laps after this incident, during the restart, a handful of cars bunched up, with Keselowski and Dillon taking the low line.
Austin Dillon bumped the rear end of Brad Keselowski’s No. 6, which unstabilized his Ford and sent it into Austin Cindric’s Penske. The RFK driver believed that Dillon had intentionally wrecked him.
On the recent episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, NASCAR’s Senior Director of Racing Communications, Amanda Ellis, explained the decision to not penalize Austin Dillon.
“When that incident occurred, you do kind of take notice what happened on the track. We actually have the ability. Scott Miller pulled all the data from that incident, and we knew pretty quickly that Austin was out of the throttle and they both were at the time of the incident. They obviously tangled on the track, and then the incident happened, right?” Ellis SAID.
“But we were able to tell pretty quickly that it wasn’t a situation where Austin was in the gas or anything related to that. To your point, TV also kind of made that judgment call that they didn’t think it was on purpose even though they had a difference of opinion about the race. We think it was more of a racing incident in NASCAR’s opinion.”
“Turnabout is fair play”: Brad Keselowski hints at revenge after Austin Dillon wrecked him at Nashville
Brad Keselowski was furious after being wrecked at Nashville during the restart. The RFK star’s spotter, TJ Majors, took to the team radio and suggested that Austin Dillon intentionally wrecked him. Keselowski seemed to share the sentiment.
Speaking with “Prime Video” after the race, the No. 6 Ford driver said,
“You know, I felt like we had just made the adjustments on the car we needed to be competitive… and it’s pretty clear he wrecked me intentionally after seeing that replay. So, turnabout is fair play.”
Keselowski currently sits at P13 in the standings with 347 points, just inside the Top 16 spot required to qualify for the Chase.
