NCS: Austin Dillon breaks two year winless streak throwing race ending and playoff bubble into chaos - Speedway Digest

Coming to Richmond Raceway has certain expectations, one of which is Denny Hamlin with a good starting position. Once again that expectation came true when just yesterday Hamlin would set the pole speed for tonight’s Cook Out 400 over teammate Martin Truex Jr.

Hamlin would lead the first 45 laps of the night with just one challenge in the early laps from Martin Truex before Christopher Bell would begin to work himself from the fifth spot to right behind Hamlin as the leader began to catch the rear of the field.

With lapped traffic Bell made an easy pass on Hamlin for the first lead change of the night. Bell would lead the remaining laps to take the opening stage win of the night followed by Hamlin, Truex, Logano and Wallace rounding out the top-five.

Under the first caution of the night only the teams of Suarez and McDowell would elect to stick option tires on the car to start stage two.

The lead would once again change hands back to Hamlin before a fast-charging Daniel Suarez, one of the two teams to take the option tire, would rocket from the 16^th spot on the restart to the lead within 12 laps of the restart, driving away by more than three seconds in the lead.

McDowell, another team on the option tire would be the free pass car starting at the rear of the field would power himself well inside the top-10 within 26 laps of the restart.

During the first green flag stops of the night nearly half the field was split on a decision between the prime tires and the option tires. Larson would use this round of stops to his advantage to take the lead before Bell would chase him back down to regain the lead.

Busch in the closing laps of stage two would swap to the option tire while a lap down only to chase down the leader, taking back a lap but wasn’t done with just taking a lap back. Busch would continue his forward progress, ending stage two in the 18th position but a lap down when the tires gave up and Suarez passed once again putting the No. 8 a lap down.

Suarez, who had taken control of the race back during the pit cycles, would take the stage two win over Bell, Hamlin, Logano and A. Dillon.

During the stage two caution a majority of the field would take the option tire with just three of the top-20 cars electing for the prime tire. One of those was Suarez who used the option tire earlier in the race to get to the lead only to see that wiped away on the restart of the final stage going from second to outside the top-15 with a matter of two laps.

Within laps of the restart, Truex would dive down pit road reporting an engine issue with smoke pouring from the car. The team would go under the hood putting out a small fire before pushing the No. 19 back to the garage to finish in the last spot.

Green flag stops would bring the field back to change from the option tires back to the prime tire, this time race leader Christopher Bell who was leading a race high of 115 laps up to this point would get nabbed for speeding on pit road.

Bell would bring his car back to pit road for his pass through penalty ending up back out on track in the 15^th position.

With Bell out of the way Hamlin would take the lead back with a fast-charging Austin Dillon who would run down the No. 11 machine between rounds of pit stops getting within a car length of Hamlin before finally taking the lead back with 28 to go.

As the white flag was due to be displayed within a half lap both Stenhouse and Preece would wreck going into turn one throwing the race into chaos. Dillon had taken the lead and was running away from Hamlin just prior to the caution by over three seconds when the caution came out.

Everyone would be forced onto pit road with Austin Dillon leading the group of cars off pit road with Hamlin losing a spot to restart in the third spot with NASCAR overtime to finish out the race.

On the restart, Logano would quickly take the lead getting to the white flag first. But in the final turn, Austin Dillon would get into the back of the No. 22 machine, sending Logano into the wall.

“It’s chicken shit. There’s no doubt about it. He’s four car lengths back not even close. Then he wrecks the 11 to go along with it.” Logano

Hamlin would also get turned in the process as Dillon with power through the melee with Logano getting to the line grabbing his first win in nearly two years while throwing the playoff bubble into chaos. Hamlin would wind up finishing in the second spot when the caution came out followed by Reddick, Wallace and Chastain.

“It’s been two years, and this is the first car I’ve had a shot to win with. We were the fastest car obviously. But sometimes you just got to have it, it’s been a tough two years, I just care about RCR, it means a lot.” Said Dillon

The NASCAR Cup Series moves onto Michigan International Speedway next Sunday, August 18^th at 2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.