BROOKLYN, Mich. – Armed with a new chassis, Austin Dillon showcased his best on-track performance since winning the Daytona 500 with a fourth-place result in Sunday’s Consumers Energy 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Despite not showing their hand in practice on Friday or throughout the weekend to be frank, Dillon did in qualifying earning a top-five starting, his first since Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway in March.
While Dillon finished 14th at the end of Stage 1, his Richard Childress Racing team led by crew chief Justin Alexander methodically worked on the handling of his No. 3 DOW Chevrolet allowing the 2013 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion to climb back inside the top-10 and rolling into the top-five by the end of Stage 2.
Restarting sixth for the start of Stage 3, Dillon used the outside lane to power back inside the top-five and found himself fourth when a lengthy caution occurred on Lap 133.
Much like before, Dillon used the restart and outside lane to his advantage to maneuver around the cars on the bottom lane and found himself hunting leader Kevin Harvick for the win.
Dillon took the lead on Lap 171 when Harvick pitted, Dillon later pitted himself at Lap 176 by opted to take two tires instead of four – hoping to give him the track position he needed to steal the show from Harvick
Harvick, however, passed Dillon a few laps after his stop on Lap 178 leaving Dillon to settle for a runner-up finish. But, as the field was coming to the white flag, Dillon radioed his team that he had a tire issue dropping Dillon to fourth when the checkered flag waved.
“First, I want to thank everybody at RCR and ECR, Dow, we’ve got the We Are Innovators Chevy this weekend,” said Dillon. “Man, we had a fast car. I got to battle with (Kevin) Harvick there
and that was awesome. I’m so proud of the guys for having a car capable of doing that.
“Yeah, that really stunk. We were kind of in position that if something happened to the No. 4 (Harvick) we could win the race. With two (laps) to go, I went into (Turn) 3 and I kind of missed the corner. When I came down the straightaway, it was just shaking like either the tire was unraveling, or it was a loose wheel. But, I didn’t want to lose this great finish we had in front of us, but we brought it home with a top five at least.”
Despite losing two positions over the final two-miles, Dillon earned his best finish since his Daytona 500 triumph and his return to the top-10 since finishing ninth at Daytona in July.
Overall, it was just Dillon’s fourth top-10 showing of 2018.
Dillon said the effort was a huge boost for his team.
“It’s huge. It’s great momentum for the team,” he said. “The pit crew was amazing all day. It just feels good. We have this capability when we put our best days together and we’ve got to keep doing it and work hard. And we’ve got a great opportunity this year with being in the Playoffs.”
Even though Dillon is a distant 20th in the championship standings – he is still poised to make a third run at a potential Monster Energy Cup Series championship.
The decision to bring RCR’s latest and greatest equipment to the Irish Hills could be a glimpse for the future and if so, Richard Childress’ bunch won’t go quietly.
“This (Michigan) is a big place for everybody,” Dillon sounded. “Especially for all the manufacturers. To come out here and be the top finishing Chevy that means a lot for RCR also.
“We have been working hard. We had spurts of speed in qualifying at the last couple of big mile-and-a-half’s. When you do that there is some reason… you should be able to keep that speed into practice and race time. We haven’t been able to do it and today we did. I don’t know if we hit something yesterday in practice that the car balance kind of kept the same speed that it did in qualifying, which was nice. The pit crew did a great job. Everybody just had a solid day, which is what we really needed.
“We will keep working hard and hopefully this is a great showing leading into the Playoffs.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
