On second thought, that’s probably Regan Smith at the 2011 Southern 500. Used tire strategy, so doesn’t fall into the gas mileage category like Menard at the Brickyard
I don't see Hamlin coming back up the track. Even looking at DIllons dash cam you can see him veer down the track and into Hamlin. Hamlin was pissed, but he's smart enough not to fire off and make it obvious when he dumps Dillon in an upcoming race.
His pit screwed him over, also.
He’s got payback coming, but he ran down and passed Logano and Hamlin under green and gapped them. He had the race won with a lap and a half to go before Stenhouse pulled his usual stuff. To say he can’t win without wrecked someone is a dishonest take
I haven’t watched many replays, but live, it looked like Hamlin was coming up as Dillon was going down. It was most likely intentional, but Dillon does have the plausible deniability of cutting left to avoid the spinning Logano as well.
He was running mid teens when that happened. Put strategy also got him back to where he was running and he managed to recover to 12ty after all the late race drama
If I'm DIllon I 100% do the same thing. Faster car and pretty high shot of winning if you can get Logano out of the way. Very very good chance that when he gets paid back he isn't sitting in 1st or 2nd on the final stretch. He will be in the first stage of a race and probably not really contending.
And I didn't watch the all star race, so whats the deal with the special softer tires? Feels like NASCAR trying to take a page out of the F1 book with their DRS.
I think Dillon isn’t delusional either. He’s said stuff that leads you to believe he’s self aware of his position in the sport and his chances to win don’t come often. I don’t blame him for doing what it took to win a race where he had to field covered before a caution that would have ended the race when I was a kid happened
Richmond’s only saving grace the last few years is that tired do matter a lot, and the tire wear results in a bunch of mixed strategies. I don’t see how the softer compound really changed all that. Pretty sure Blaney and Suarez were the only lead lap cars without any soft tires left for the last pit stop
I was watching most of this race with nothing else on, and Suarez got a huge advantage using his red tires early. Didn't end up helping in the end once everyone else used their first set but he was driving around people with that first red like everyone else was on skates.
Suarez was the first to use them and would have been the last to use them had the GWC not happened. He was on pace to run Dillon down from 15 seconds back before the tires evened out and would have likely had a top 5 anyways
