FORT WORTH, Texas – Austin Dillon held the lead after a restart with two laps remaining to beat rookie Tyler Reddick to the Texas checkered flag, giving Richard Childress Racing his first NASCAR Cup final 1-2 in nine years.
With spectators scattered in the stands on a scorching Sunday, a heavily dehydrated Dillon received the checkered flag and did some celebratory exhaustions on the main straight before heading to the infield spotlight.
“I got a couple intravenous injections on myself, I felt great. I felt great once I got into the air conditioner. I wanted to go out again because it sucks to win the race and you’re falling,” said Dillon. her post-race video call with journalists. “But I gave it my all. I left it all out there. At least I can say that, and I left it all on the track.”
Dillon ran for his third career win and his first since Daytona at the start of the 2018 season. He held the lead in three late restarts, the first after an incident with 29 laps remaining that dragged Ryan Blaney’s speedy car into a turn back.
“Not bad for a silver spoon boy, huh?” said Dillon, Childress’s grandson. “Tyler Reddick, he ran me clean. One-two for RCR. This has been coming. We have had good cars all year. I have my baby Ace at home, my wife. I am very happy.”
It was RCR’s first 1-2 Cup final since Clint Bowyer won at Talladega in 2011 ahead of Jeff Burton.
Childress watched the race from a command center at the team’s racing store in North Carolina.
“I mean, it’s great … Having Tyler there, to work, he has a teammate that he’s really working well with,” Childress said. “And seeing those two guys running for victory, I knew they weren’t going to do it, I was hoping they wouldn’t break up. It was great to see RCR up front.
On the final restart, Dillon jumped up and ran for the checkered flag in front of his rookie teammate and some veteran drivers.
“I can’t ask for much more than what we got there,” said Reddick. “I just wanted him to be among us.” I didn’t want to bring other cars, make sure we could fight. We just received the restarts that gave us opportunities. “
Joey Logano finished third, with Kyle Busch in fourth place a day after finishing ahead of the field in two races: An Xfinity Series victory was taken from him after his car failed a post-race inspection before winning the Truck Series race at night. Series point leader Kevin Harvick was fifth.
There were an estimated 15,000-20,000 spectators on the track, where it reached 97 degrees late in the first Summer Cup race in Texas. It was supposed to be a spring race almost four months ago before the coronavirus pandemic was postponed and then changed NASCAR’s schedule. Inside the cars, it was 130-140 degrees.
After leading six times for 150 laps, both highs for the race, Blaney finished seventh.
Blaney, who had given up the lead when he faced Lap 287, fell one lap after the field scrambled 29 laps to go when rookie Quin Houff crashed hard at Turn 4. That also put the Polar Aric Almirola and Chase Elliott, coming off a $ 1 million victory at the NASCAR All-Star race in Bristol on Wednesday night, one lap behind.
Cole Custer, the Rookie Stewart-Haas Racing driver who came out of a win last weekend in Kentucky, was one of 11 drivers involved in a chain reaction crash on Lap 218 that brought out a red flag. His crumbling No. 41 Ford pulled up near the Pit Road exit.
That build-up in the front stretch came around the lap after the restart, with most cars still stuck as they exited the fourth corner when Blaney appeared to be between multiple cars to break free, though he was in close combat when the cars started to crash.
Track workers brought water to drivers in their cars parked on their track during the red flag that lasted more than 11 minutes.
It was 30 degrees warmer than March 29, when the race had been scheduled before the pandemic. Texas will host a playoff race on October 25.
Before four-time Super Bowl quarterback champion Terry Bradshaw gave an emphatic order to start the engines, he greeted the “beautiful people” in the stands.
It was the first major sporting event in Texas in more than four months, and one of the largest gatherings of any kind in the state during the pandemic. Spectators spread out along the main straight, which was completely shaded at the end of the race, and there were also people in about 40 suites.
Speedway Motorsports, which owns Bristol and Texas, is a privately held company like NASCAR, and does not publish official attendance numbers. But there seemed to be around 20,000 fans in Bristol for the All-Star race on Wednesday night, and a similar crowd was expected in Texas, where current regulations would have allowed 50% capacity on the track with capacity for about 135,000.
“These are the people who wanted to be here. We were never trying to set an attendance record and I told them they were going to turn on the television and say ‘nobody is there,’ ” TMS President Eddie Gossage said during the race. without confirming any figures. ” The truth is, there is a pretty good number here. But still, a massive place. ”
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