THE MODERATOR: We\u2019ll start our questions with Austin.<\/p>\n
Q. You said on TV you have a broken rib. How did that happen?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: I don\u2019t like to talk about it, but I fell off a ladder pulling my bow case off getting ready for hunting season. Fell on top of the bow case. It knocked the breath out of me. Knew it was pretty bad. Went ahead and raced Iowa. I got it x-rayed. Seventh one on my right is broken.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been racing with it. It\u2019s been pretty painful. I raced Watkins Glen, Iowa, then here. Should be good. It\u2019s made pretty big improvements over the last two weeks.<\/p>\n
Q. When it comes down to these end-of-the-regular-season situations, why is your team so clutch?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Yeah, I don\u2019t know, man. I guess we\u2019re just built that way. You\u2019re never out of the fight kind of deal. My guys really believe me, the pit crew guys I have, they\u2019re dogs. They stuck with me through thick and thin when they probably had the opportunity to go to other teams and be more successful.<\/p>\n
They stuck with me. I think we just have a bond that means a lot. I think it was big to build on Iowa. That was a good run for us. We had to compete with some top teams on pit road. If you ask them, they struggled the first couple pit stops. I didn\u2019t notice it. I couldn\u2019t figure out why we lost track position the one time. Then they got it together and were clutch when it mattered.<\/p>\n
A couple dogs out there. I like working with them, for sure. They\u2019re my boys.<\/p>\n
Q. Can you give me a sense of just the work behind the scenes of trying to get this company back up to the way it can be, the way you guys want it to be. You have so much on your plate beyond being a driver. What has gone in to build to a moment like tonight beginning something bigger?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: You look at our organization. There\u2019s one rock in the middle of it. That\u2019s my grandfather. He\u2019s always been there. He\u2019s always the guy on top of the truck and trailer giving his all. You don\u2019t see that from every owner out there.<\/p>\n
If I can be a rock to help the rest of the organization when the rock is getting older. He is. He\u2019s getting older. He\u2019s still a fighter. You just want to fill those shoes as best as you can and helped when you can.<\/p>\n
Richard Boswell is a heck of a leader. A good get for us in the off-season. He\u2019s a guy that can be a leader for years to come after crew chiefing for him. The guys really rally behind him.<\/p>\n
He built an excellent team for us. Multiple times I told him this year, if I can\u2019t go fast with the team I have right now, I need to think about doing something else, moving to another role. This feels really good.<\/p>\n
Just keep working on that and see what we can do in the Playoffs. I think I have a great team right now, probably one of the strongest ones we\u2019ve built. It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Q. Do you have a sense of the fire that your grandfather still has? We heard what he said on the radio after the Dover race, seeing his reaction to other things. What do you see out of those fires and what are those meetings like when you\u2019re talking about the organization, how much you have to calm him down or\u2026<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: We have knock-down, drag-outs between the two of us.<\/p>\n
Q. (No microphone.)<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Yeah. We get into arguments to the point of frustration. It\u2019s very hard when he\u2019s your grandfather to have an argument with him because you don\u2019t want to argue about it. There\u2019s certain directions we have to go to move this boat forward, right? I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
Yeah, but he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
He usually has a way about it where you tell him one thing and he\u2019s going to get upset about it. Then two weeks later turn around, What do you think about this? That\u2019s a great idea, man (smiling). I love that.<\/p>\n
At his age, too. 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\u2019t get over those type of things.<\/p>\n
Hopefully this lets him sleep at night again to that point because this sport is special. It\u2019s given our family a living and a lot of other families a living.<\/p>\n
Man, I couldn\u2019t believe the race we were having out there with Ryan. That one section in the race when we were side by side, I had no tires, it was icy slick, you can\u2019t get the throttle down. We\u2019re just riding there beside each other trying to play like chicken, who can get a little bit more.<\/p>\n
The tires were done. We were both toast. We were able to just gain that little bit of an advantage. Richard made a great call to hit pit road. I was able to manage my tires at the start of that run and that helped me for the end.<\/p>\n
Q. Was it not hard to come in here and be angry over last year?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: I\u2019m too tired to be angry. I mean, I got a little cold, a broken rib, a lot of adversity. Man, some things you don\u2019t understand at the time. Come back around. God has a way of putting that timing together. I feel like I was probably the calmest I\u2019ve ever been tonight in the car winning the race. I didn\u2019t act a certain way. I was just thankful for the opportunity.<\/p>\n
It was just a timing thing. If you would have told me we would come back a year later and sitting in Victory Lane after all we went through, man, we went through that and I, like, cried in our appeal process because that win meant a lot to me to be able to race with Denny and Joey.<\/p>\n
Before that period, we didn\u2019t have a good run. I was so, like, pumped to just be up there racing for a win. Then to come back this year, everyone is telling you, Go get it done. You can get the redemption here. Show him what it means to win.<\/p>\n
Dude, I had a three-second lead last year before the caution came out.<\/p>\n
Tonight it kind of played out the same way it did last year. Our car just kept getting better and better. We weren\u2019t that great at the start. A little tight. The guys did a very good job of just keeping up with the track for me. I was struggling giving them the information really. I thought I did a better job last year telling them what I needed.<\/p>\n
Our car had short-run speed. At the end when it mattered, I was able to kind of take it easy when we got the tires on before Blaney. I think that ended up netting me the end of the run.<\/p>\n
Q. I saw you got on your driver\u2019s side window. Did you have any thoughts after last weekend?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Dale was there with me. Hey, we got to make sure this is inside the car now so the window net doesn\u2019t trip me up.<\/p>\n
I had thoughts. I couldn\u2019t get out of the car. I had my radio harness twisted underneath my belt. I\u2019m pulling on it. Couldn\u2019t get it off. That took me forever to get out of the car. The burnout was good, but the get-out was not (smiling).<\/p>\n
Q. Do you feel like you get enough credit for the success you\u2019ve had at the Cup Series level?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: I think I get the credit I deserve, man. I have some great fans out there. It\u2019s cool when I go out and sign autographs. I have some loyal fans because they\u2019ve had to go through a struggle at times.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re kind of like a fighter. We don\u2019t go away. I think a lot of people think that guy is going to go away at some point. We\u2019re able to claw, chip, find ways. I like that underdog mentality a little bit.<\/p>\n
Yeah, no, it feels pretty good. I won two Xfinity championships, quite a few Cup races now. This one probably one of the best ones because no drama and it was pretty much a butt kicking there. It was good.<\/p>\n
Q. Do you feel this sends a statement to anybody out there who may want to point fingers at you and say why is this guy still driving the 3 car?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: They\u2019re going to do it either way. I could win 50 races, and they\u2019ll say my grandpa gave me the ride. They\u2019re not wrong. He did. He did a great job putting me in it. Hopefully I\u2019m paying off on his investment at some point (smiling).<\/p>\n
Q. A few days ago we were talking, talked about you have success here at Richmond and at Daytona. How does it change going into Daytona next week?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Probably changes a little bit. We have to help our guy out in the 8, try to support him as much as we can, get another RCR teammate in there. He\u2019s really good at Daytona.<\/p>\n
Do what I can. Maybe try to get us bonus points, stages and stuff. Focus probably goes to the 8 now.<\/p>\n
Can we ask for more short track races (laughter)?<\/p>\n
Q. Maybe I\u2019m projecting, but seeing you in Victory Lane, the way you walked in here, was there a bit of a swagger, part of you that\u2019s like I\u2019m back again?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Yeah, I guess. I just kind of can\u2019t believe it right now a little bit. It\u2019s so hard to win at the Cup level. The execution, we were very flawless tonight. At times I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
When the 12 short pitted us and I had to run him down, I was trying to be patient. Boswell made a great call. Really adamant that I don\u2019t hurt my tires at the beginning of the run. It paid off.<\/p>\n
If you want to call it swagger, I\u2019m all about it. I feel like growing up in the Truck Series and Xfinity Series, I felt like I had maximum swag, swagger, winning and doing different things.<\/p>\n
You get to Cup level, it just humbles you. It\u2019s a whole \u2018nother department of winning. Now I\u2019m more thankful than anything. It\u2019s not like, Kiss my butt, I won. It\u2019s more like, Man, that was awesome. To be able to get a win at the highest level of motorsport, and do it for my family, RCR, Welcome, the pit crew, all those guys. I\u2019m the guy that got to wheel it tonight. Thank you, Jesus.<\/p>\n
Q. Last year it seems like from the moment that you got to Victory Lane, you walked in here, a dark cloud. I don\u2019t know how much of a celebration there was. What was the celebration like last year? How is this one going to be different?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Well, the guys already asked if we were going to the house to party. I\u2019ll do whatever. Like I said, I\u2019m wore out. When we left, Ace was like, Dad, we haven\u2019t won in a long time. It was just last year, dude.<\/p>\n
What else did you say? Is everybody going to come to the house?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: Yes.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: There we go. So if Ace man says everybody can come party tonight, I guess it will happen.<\/p>\n
Q. Austin, with him hopping up there with you, how much more does this one mean having the whole family here?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Ace, what is it like to win?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: Good.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Does that feel good to win, when Daddy wins?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: Yes.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: We don\u2019t win all the time, do we?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: Yeah.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: But today what happened?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: Win.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: That\u2019s right. It feels amazing.<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: Why do you call a flame a button?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: A fish button.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Telling jokes now, man. Went from zero to a hundred real quick.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it feels amazing. I told Justin Alexander last year, I\u2019d do anything to get my daughter to Victory Lane. I\u2019ve had Ace to Victory Lane a couple times now. Now we had Blaize. She was up there with her finger up going No. 1. Those are the moments you cherish forever, keep on fighting. Hopefully that rubs off on them, dad never gave up and got himself to Victory Lane.<\/p>\n
Q. How much you\u2019ve taken on outside of just driving the race car, how much has that driven you in addition to the fire to competition?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Yeah, you wake up and it\u2019s pretty surreal really to be able to work with your family, work on the Carolina Cowboys, for example. I love working with them. I\u2019ve learned a lot about people in general. Those guys are one tough customer, all those Cowboys. I think it makes me tougher. If I would have complained about my rib before now, the Cowboys would have been like, That\u2019s nothing. Get over it. Move on.<\/p>\n
I enjoy a lot of it, man. You have to compartmentalize everything, the family part, compartmentalize getting to the racetrack and the ups and downs of it.<\/p>\n
But Boswell, he\u2019s special, man. We had it out probably six or seven races in. It was a one-on-one meeting with him and I. It was like an adult conversation. Hey, man, we\u2019re both competitors. We\u2019re very similar in a lot of ways. We got to respect each other in that way.<\/p>\n
From that point on, man, that guy\u2019s my brother. I understand him. I think he understands me now. He\u2019s just, like, I couldn\u2019t ask for a better guy to push me and ask the right things. We have an understanding of each other now. It\u2019s really nice to have that.<\/p>\n
Q. How does this victory shape your confidence and your momentum as you enter the final week of the regular season, going into the Playoffs?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Well, I mean, I liked that first round. Those are places that we run typically well at. Darlington. I think New Hampshire is in there. Is Gateway in there, too? I\u2019m all about those three. Yeah, we can play spoiler on those three, for sure.<\/p>\n
We can take things we did tonight, strategy-wise, just execution-wise, and take it into the Playoffs and we\u2019ll be good.<\/p>\n
I think it all started at Iowa. We probably had a better car than 10th place. The cautions just didn\u2019t fall our way. I definitely think that first round is a good one for us.<\/p>\n
Q. You were really good here in Nationwide, then Xfinity. Took a while for the results to start coming at Richmond in Cup. What is working here for you?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: This was the worst track for me when I started racing. I\u2019m not kidding. I came here, I don\u2019t get it, I don\u2019t understand it. Drive harder, slower. We had one test. One Xfinity run that was pretty solid. Got to the lead, kind of understood some things.<\/p>\n
I feel like I run a different line than everybody. I don\u2019t know location-wise on the track, if you watch me, I\u2019m very adamant about where I put my car on the long run. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the patience that helps the tire live longer.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m usually running in my own place down there, kind of catfishing around the bottom. But, yeah, I just had one really good test. I kind of found a rhythm.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m able to tell the guys what I need in the simulator before we get here. If the simulator feels right, my guys wanted to change some things. I\u2019m like, This doesn\u2019t feel right, go back to what I know. I can drive around that feel.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m super confident when we get on the simulator that I can get it close to what we have here. For me, like, I try and help the other guys in our team to show them what I feel. It\u2019s something about the location of where I run I think is the biggest thing.<\/p>\n
Q. You were where you wanted to be when you were battling Blaney?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Yeah. I don\u2019t want to be on the outside. Kills my tires. At least I can\u2019t make it work out there.<\/p>\n
I should have won an old car race here, too. There was one I sped on pit road that we were capable of winning, for sure.<\/p>\n
Q. You\u2019ve talked about the general perspective of last year\u2019s win compared to this year\u2019s win. You praised the Lord and that sort of thing. Can you talk about your faith-based perspective between last year and this year. Have you leaned into that? Is there any scripture or anything you pulled from?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: I think when you go through the ups and downs of the sport, you start realizing what we do here, we live in a bubble a lot of the time. There\u2019s a lot of other stuff that goes on in this world.<\/p>\n
My dad has preached to me lately about Proverbs, a proverb a day. It\u2019s really quite simple. I don\u2019t do the greatest job of it. I try to keep up with it. I did one perfect for a month, 31 days, proverb per day. He pushed me, finally got me on it.<\/p>\n
Every time I open the Bible and read Proverbs, it speaks to me a certain way and grounds you. That\u2019s the biggest thing, you have to have a way to get grounded, know what\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n
Proverbs is pretty easy. It tells you what you need to hear most of the time.<\/p>\n
Q. Both R.C. and Richard hit on how they were feeling during the final 10 to 15 laps. What was going through your mind towards the end?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: No caution. No caution. Don\u2019t blow a tire. I got to a point where with, like, 20 to go, the car was kind of getting squirmy on me, I was losing the rear tires. Gave it a little front brake. It calmed down. I kind of got confident again.<\/p>\n
When I was listening to lap times, he was gaining, gaining, gaining. Then we crossed over. When I heard that we were like half a 10th or a 10th faster, I said he burned his stuff up. I knew that wasn\u2019t going to be the problem.<\/p>\n
They let me know the 48 was coming. There was a couple laps where he was a 10th or so. With four to go, I ran a lap faster than him. With the three seconds, I knew we were fine.<\/p>\n
Q. Last year you sat on the podium and said it was potentially your biggest win outside of the 500. Does this surpass it for you?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: This feels great. This is what I wanted last year. It\u2019s not how I wanted to end it last year. Felt like I had to with my back against the wall kind of deal.<\/p>\n
This year it just played out the way God wanted it to, I guess.<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Austin. Congratulations.<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: Thank you.<\/p>\n
Ace, you got anything to say?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: What do you call a rainbow fish, a camouflage fish, and a red fish?<\/p>\n
AUSTIN DILLON: What?<\/p>\n
ACE DILLON: A planet.<\/p>\n
NASCAR PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE MODERATOR: We\u2019ll start our questions with Austin. Q. You said on TV you have a broken rib.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[22083,15756,425,2093,54590,2094,562,2095,99,92,2097],"class_list":["post-89104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-austin-dillon","tag-daytona","tag-nascar","tag-nationwide","tag-race-car","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-speed","tag-sports","tag-tv","tag-xfinity-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}