NASCAR will not penalize Austin Dillon for contact with Brad Keselowski, wreck

NASCAR will not penalize Austin Dillon for his contact with Brad Keselowski that wrecked the No. 6 car at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday. That came out on Tuesday, despite the fact that Keselowski’s spotter accused Dillon of intentionally wrecking the No. 6.

Data did not seem to support the accusation. NASCAR senior director of racing communications Amanda Ellis addressed the incident on the Hauler Talk podcast.

“Scott Miller pulled all the data from that incident, and we knew pretty quickly that Austin was out of the throttle (before hitting Keselowski),” Ellis said. “They obviously tangled on the track, and then the incident happened, right? But we were able to tell pretty quickly that it wasn’t a situation where Austin was in the gas or anything related to that.”

Additionally, Prime Video analyst Steve Letarte broke down the incident on Monday in a NASCAR.com video. He determined Austin Dillon had dropped from 100% throttle to 17% throttle at the point of impact.

“Those two (drivers) clearly kind of had some differences of opinion throughout the race,” Ellis said. “And so that one is really more of just a racing incident, and that’s really how NASCAR viewed it on Sunday night.”

TJ Majors accuses Austin Dillon of intentional wreck

Tempers flared between Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski early in the third stage of the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville in the NASCAR Cup Series, resulting in a wreck. Keselowski’s crew told him that Dillon was retaliating for an earlier incident.

Dillon drove through the back of Keselowski on the inside of the track early in Stage 3, sending him spinning. That came after Keselowski had contributed to a Dillon spin earlier in the race.

“The 3 (Austin Dillon) wrecked you on purpose; he’s mad at you from earlier,” spotter TJ Majors told Keselowski over the team’s radio. That was relayed by The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi.

The earlier incident on the track happened when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. moved for a late pit stop, catching Brad Keselowski off guard. Keselowski then came down again after swerving to the top of the track, cutting off Dillon. Dillon caught his back bumper and went spinning.

So when the two came together again in Stage 3, tensions were already high. For his part, Austin Dillon seemed confused by what happened in front of him.

“Why did everyone check up there?” he said, per Matt Weaver. “I was already on the brake pedal.”

Following the contact and a hard hit with the wall, Brad Keselowski headed to the garage. His day was officially done.

Keselowski was interviewed by the Amazon Prime crew shortly after exiting the infield care center. He was informed that the broadcast team had heard his crew’s comments on the wreck and was asked his thoughts on the on-track incident with Austin Dillon.

“I don’t know. I know I got hit from behind,” Brad Keselowski said. “Can’t really put myself in somebody else’s head. But it’s a shame. I felt like we had just made the adjustments on the car we needed to be competitive. It’s pretty clear he wrecked me intentionally after seeing that replay. So turnabout’s fair play.