NASCAR
Austin Dillon Wins Richmond Again in Short Track Mastery
RICHMOND, Va. – Same song, different dance, and no bumpers necessary this time around. For a second-straight year, the dominant driver of the night at Richmond Raceway was Austin Dillon in the No. 3 Chevrolet. Without any of the controversy seen here last year Dillon left his competition in the dust, driving off to his most commanding Cup victory yet. Ultimately, the Playoff picture looks drastically different with one regular season race remaining.
Tyler Reddick’s team opted to nearly split Stage 1 in half with their green flag stop. This allowed Reddick ample tires and time to get by polesitter Ryan Preece for the opening Stage win. Late in Stage 2 saw Reddick spin after Daniel Suarez sent Ty Gibbs into the No. 45’s path. Stage 2 remained perfect for 23XI Racing, with these bonus points going to Bubba Wallace.
Stage 2 also saw another chaotic moment in its closing laps. Restart contact turned Chase Briscoe across the field entering turn three. Despite this incident collecting over ten cars, only Chase Elliott and Justin Haley were sidelined. Elliott’s exit here sealed the regular season championship for his teammate William Byron. Amazingly this was driver No. 9’s first DNF of 2025.
When Stage 3 went green, defending Richmond winner Austin Dillon took command and soon drove off to the largest lead of the night. With no further cautions, tire strategies played out naturally and pitted Dillon against Ryan Blaney. The Penske No. 12 briefly took the lead away from the 3, due to pitting one lap earlier midway through this final stage. Dillon’s final pit stop did undercut Blaney, allowing the 3 another large lead. Blaney would lose second to Alex Bowman in the closing laps, giving Austin Dillon an uncontested path back to victory lane.
“Man, that feels good,” Dillon said after leading 107 laps. “Got to thank the good Lord above. I really wanted that one. Last year hurt really bad just going through the whole process of it. But this one feels so sweet. Man, I love Richmond.”
“Our Winchester Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet is really good. I was out a lot this week. Didn’t feel great. I’m actually racing with a broken rib right now for the last two weeks. Man, that was awesome.”
“God has timing. His timing is the best timing. So excited to get my wife and kids here to celebrate with us.”
“Man, it’s so sweet. My dad prayed with me before the race. He was at our hunting land doing some food plots. It’s just so special. Every one of these means so much to me. My grandfather, for all that he’s put up in believing in me, because there’s been a lot of ups and downs, could have been easy for him to change the drivers in this 3 car. Today it feels really darn good.”
Behind the front trio, Team Penske closed out the top-five with Joey Logano and Austin Cindric. The rest of the top-10 were: Kyle Larson, Daniel Suarez, Josh Berry, Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin. Hear from a few of these drivers below.
Thanks to Dillon being the 14th different winner this season, two Playoffs berths remain open heading into race 26. These final two positions are currently held by Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman. Alas, Daytona can see almost anyone take the checkered flag.
All the Playoff drama comes down to the Coke Zero Sugar 400 from Daytona on Saturday night. The ultimate wildcard race that’s also the great equalizer will go green at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Last year proved that anyone in the field is capable of winning this race and upsetting the postseason grid. Are we due for another come-from-nowhere triumph?
Written by Peter Stratta
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