Fort Worth, Tex. – No doubt that AAA Texas 500 pole sitter Austin Dillon had one of the best runs of the season in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Quickly though his strong night unraveled in a matter of eight laps.
On Lap 256, while running fourth, contact from David Ragan sent the No. 3 Dow Chevrolet around in Turn 3 igniting the event’s sixth caution. Despite some minor damage to his splitter, the Richard Childress Racing driver didn’t lose any spots on the race track.
When the caution came out, a consolation gift was given to Dillon’s No. 3 team as they were able to enter pit road to change tires and add fuel.
On the restart, Dillon found himself battling for a spot inside the top-five and cleared Kevin Harvick in Turn 4 on Lap 263 with a slide job. Harvick though made contact with the rear bumper of Dillon’s Chevrolet sending the Lewisville, North Carolina driver hard into the outside wall on the frontstretch.
Immediately after the crash, Dillon’s crew chief, Slugger Labbe, told his driver that he “needed to get mad.”
“He flat-out wrecked you, man,” Labbe told Dillon over the team radio. “Mark down that number. We’re going to Phoenix next weekend, he’s going to have to win. We don’t. That’s crazy man.”
In the garage, Dillon didn’t feel the contact was incidental.
“No, he (Kevin Harvick) sucked down on my door all the way.” said Dillon. “I get it, you’ve got to hold a guy down, but he sucked down on my door and got me tight. That is the reason I slid up in front of him and then he didn’t lift he just turned me. There are two more weeks left.”
The incident allowed Dillon to throw a jab at Harvick, rebutting from harsh comments from Harvick during a Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway in 2013.
“The 3 (of Dillon) just dumped me,” Harvick said at the time. “Exactly the reason I’m leaving RCR because you’ve got those kids coming up, and they’ve got no respect for what they do in this sport and they’ve had everything fed to them with a spoon.”
Three years later, it was Dillon’s turn.
“He didn’t like it that the silver spoon kid was out-running him tonight. So we will be alright, we have two weeks left and we just want to come out and win a race.”
What seemed to infuriate Dillon more about the incident was Harvick’s decision not to lift and allow Dillon to claim the position. Last month, Harvick lifted to avoid crashing Denny Hamlin at Talladega Superspeedway – a move that likely sent Hamlin into the Round of 8.
“I mean, he is tucked down to my door tighter than anybody did all night,” added Dillon. “He knew how tight he was on my door and that is why I got tight and slid up in front of him. He didn’t check (up), but he had the opportunity to.”
Harvick, however, was apologetic for the contact post-race.
“I just want to apologize to the 3 (car, Austin Dillon),” he said. “He kind of came up there and he slid in front of me and got loose and when he checked up I hit him again. That was not anything I wanted to see.
“All-in-all there was no intent there, and I like racing with Austin and I like everything that they do and there was no reason to. “I was running seventh and sixth. “We were on a restart there and he slid up, and he got loose, and I hit the back of him.”
As for Labbe’s comments, Harvick replied, “Slugger says a lot of things that he shouldn’t.”
If there’s a bright side to Sunday’s race for Dillon and his team was their performance.
Earning their second pole of the season and running competitively inside the top-five during the penultimate mile and a half track this season is good practice for what we might expect from the 3 team in 2017.
Dillon may be out of the championship fight, but winning races he is not.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
