For all the attention that Elliott Sadler and Ricky Stenhouse have gathered in their 1-2 fight for the NASCAR Nationwide Series title, Austin Dillon doesn’t mind being left out of the headlines.
“All year long, they’ve kind of kept us there as the third guy, but it’s nice — they don’t know when we’re coming, I guess,” Dillon said. “It’s a place that you have nothing to lose because no one expects it. We’re the underdog, I guess, and we’ll just go after it every week like we’re going to have a chance to win the race. . . . This is our rookie year and we’re having fun. Giving ourselves a chance to win a championship is unheard of.”
Dillon’s historic quest to become a first-year champion in a NASCAR national series continues in Friday night’s Dollar General 300 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). Just five races remain for him to potentially break the Sadler-Stenhouse stronghold and shed his role as the Nationwide tour’s third wheel.
Dillon sits 25 points behind points leader and Richard Childress Racing teammate Sadler, a four-time winner this season. Stenhouse, a five-time victor in 2012, is just nine points behind Sadler and 16 ahead of the lurking Dillon in a bid for his second consecutive Nationwide crown before making the leap to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
None of the top three have won at Charlotte, but all three have won at 1.5-mile facilities this season. Of the three, Stenhouse has been the most prolific at intermediate-size tracks, with wins this year at Las Vegas, Texas, Atlanta and Chicagoland. He’ll drive the same car he won with at Atlanta, where he stunned racelong dominator Kevin Harvick with a last-lap pass.
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