With a spot in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs now in the bag, thanks to his sixth career win at Richmond Raceway in the Cook Out 400 on Saturday night, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon has high hopes for a Championship run.

After qualifying 11th in the No. No. 3 Chevrolet, the 35-year-old wound up finishing fourth in Stages 1 and 2, ultimately leading 107 laps as he staved off pressure from the likes of Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, and Bubba Wallace – who suffered an unfortunate pit lane incident which put him out of the running for the win on lap 292 – to reach victory lane.

The 14th different race winner this season, Dillon’s win leaves just two Playoff spots up for grabs as the Cup Series heads to Daytona for the final regular season race of 2025. As of Richmond, these are occupied by Bowman and Tyler Reddick, with Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece both less than 100 points below the cutoff line.

As for Dillon, appearing on NASCAR’s The Day After podcast, he admitted that his team’s focus is now shifting to the First Round of the Playoffs, which will kick off at Darlington Raceway before heading to World Wide Technology Raceway and finally Bristol Motor Speedway, after which it will be on to the Round of 12.

“That first round for us is a really good round,” Dillon said. “I can circle those three tracks and finish in the top 10 of all three of them. So, I feel really great about the first round of the playoffs. I know my team does [as well].

“So, starting off at Darlington, [Richard] Boswell (crew chief) has a good baseline there, they won the race last year with [Chase] Briscoe. Gateway (WWTR) was probably our second-best race last year, ran seventh and ran in the top five the whole day. And then Bristol, we ran top 10 earlier this year.

“So, we’ve just got to get to them, knock them out one at a time, and show that same poise and calm and execution that we showed at Richmond, and we can progress to the next round.

“And I’m not even going to look to the next round, I’m just going to look at those three and go to work on them in the simulator and try and do the same type of things that we did to prepare for Richmond.”

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Dillon has good reason to feel optimistic, with top 10 finishes on five occasions at Darlington, although his most recent trip to the 1.37-mile oval earlier this season saw him cross the line down in 23rd. As for WWTR, the No. 3 came home in sixth last season, while his 10th place at Bristol in April marked Dillon’s best finish there since 2020.

But while Dillon may have his eyes firmly set on the First Round, he’ll first need to get through Daytona, where he has won twice previously, most recently in the 2022 Coke Zero Sugar 400.