Austin Dillon’s Victory Shows Richard Childress Racing’s Potential

Austin Dillon, driver of the No. 3 Bass Pro/Winchester Chevrolet, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway on August 16, 2025 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

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Richard Childress Racing is back in the Nascar Cup Series playoffs this year, and it’s via an epic victory by Austin Dillon at Richmond Raceway.

Dillon, who won at Richmond last year in controversial fashion, was removed from the 2024 playoffs due to his last-lap actions. He wrecked both Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano to win the race, and that didn’t sit well with Nascar.

But the “redemption” victory this year has RCR ready to compete for a championship for the first time since Kyle Busch made the 2023 playoffs.

“To come back this year, everyone is telling you, ‘Go get it done,’’” Dillon said in his post-race press conference. “You can get the redemption here. Show him what it means to win. I had a three-second lead last year before the caution came out.”

Dillon’s victory – in which he led 107 laps – was RCR’s most dominating effort since Tyler Reddick led 99 laps during the Bristol Dirt Race in 2022. And no RCR driver had led over 100 laps in a single race since Kevin Harvick did so at Kansas Speedway in 2013.

“I just kind of can’t believe it right now a little bit,” Dillon said of the victory. “It’s so hard to win at the Cup level. The execution, we were very flawless tonight. At times, I don’t think we were the fastest car, but we out-executed people. When the restart happened, we chose the bottom. I was able to get clean air. I think I was giving it all I had right there to get as far as out in front as I could to create that gap.”

RCR’s on-track struggles have been well documented. Busch missed the playoffs last year and – unless he wins at Daytona this weekend – will do so once again for the second straight year. Dillon was mired in the low-20s in the standings prior to his win. While there have been moments of raw speed to compete for wins with Busch’s No. 8 team, the lack of consistency has hindered his hopes at making a title run. Currently, he’s riding a career-high 70-race winless streak.

“There’s one rock in the middle of [our organization],” Dillon said. “That’s my grandfather [Richard Childress]. He’s always been there. He’s always the guy on top of the truck and trailer giving his all. You don’t see that from every owner out there.

“If I can be a rock to help the rest of the organization when the rock is getting older. He is. He’s getting older. He’s still a fighter. You just want to fill those shoes as best as you can and helped when you can.

“I think I have a great team right now, probably one of the strongest ones we’ve built. It’s a testament to guys coming to RCR because they know what they get with my grandfather, then me doing what I can to reach out and tell them we want to make this organization as strong as some of the top teams out there. There’s a lot of big, strong teams out there. We scrap and claw and figure out ways to win. I think we have fun when we do that.”

The victory did reveal that Dillon and his brother Ty Dillon are slowly taking the reigns within the organization, attempting to right the ship.

“We get into arguments to the point of frustration,” Dillon said of his relationship with his grandfather. “It’s very hard when he’s your grandfather to have an argument with him because you don’t want to argue about it. There’s certain directions we have to go to move this boat forward, right? I’m constantly pushing him. My brother has stepped in now and trying to help, as well.

“Between the two of us, we want to try to take some of the load off of him as we go. Yeah, but he’s very loyal to a fault almost. He really takes great care of those that are around him. We just push him to try and make change at some point in time. He usually has a way about it where you tell him one thing and he’s going to get upset about it. Then, two weeks later turn around, ‘What do you think about this? That’s a great idea, man (smiling).’ I love that.

“One thing that I think really hurt him last year this Richmond race, going over this process, it stung to him because he felt like Nascar kind of let him down in a way. They had to make a call. I got over it. He doesn’t get over those type of things. Hopefully, this lets him sleep at night again to that point because this sport is special. It’s given our family a living and a lot of other families a living.”

As RCR charges forward, Dillon believes the team will be a title contender once again.