Austin Dillon wins at Richmond for the second year in a row, this time with less controversy.

Clinching his sixth career NASCAR Cup Series victory and becoming the first repeat winner of the Cook Out 400 in 15 years, Dillon has locked himself into the NASCAR playoffs.

After last year’s last lap conflict with Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin ultimately kept him out of the playoffs, Dillon does it cleanly this time giving Richard Childress Racing their first win of the 2025 season and locking the #3 car into the 16-car postseason field.

Dillon was adamant in his post-race speech about how this win feels more like validation rather than redemption.

“Last year, hurt really bad” Dillon said. “But this one feels so sweet.”

Dillon even went on to mention that he’s been “racing with a broken rib for the past two weeks.”

Not only does this win shake up the playoff field, it also puts a lot of pressure on some drivers who might’ve thought they were in a better position than they are now.

Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman cling onto the final two spots in the field of 16, but neither of them are in the clear yet.

With the final race of the regular season looming, it’ll be imperative that drivers have a clean day at Daytona — which is no easy task.

We’ll discuss more about the playoff bubble at the end of this article, but let’s first recap an entertaining Saturday night from Richmond.

RECAP

Stage one would see all 70 laps run under green flag conditions, with a lot of pit strategy involved.

Ryan Preece started on the pole, but would not be able to clinch the stage victory after pit stops shuffled everyone around.

Tyler Reddick would pick up the much needed stage points, his teammate Bubba Wallace would take and their team’s co-owner Denny Hamlin finished third.

However, Reddick’s luck was snake bitten in stage two as he gets collected in result of Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suarez making contact, spinning Reddick.

He wasn’t the only one with bad luck either. After a Cody Ware spin brings out another caution, the field stacks up and gives it another go.

As they race down the backstretch, Kyle Busch spins out Chase Briscoe and causes a big pile up in turn three.

Many cars were collected, but the biggest hit came from Chase Elliott coming out of turn four.

As Elliott and Busch tried to avoid the wreck, Busch doesn’t see the #9 of Elliott and clips him.

This would ultimately end Chase Elliott’s day, making it the first time this season Elliott DNF’d.

On lap 230, Bubba Wallace would claim his first career short track stage victory.

Stage three would see a large tire fall-off on every car in the field, but after strategy plays into the favor of Austin Dillon, he is able to hold off the hard-charging Alex Bowman and nab his sixth playoff appearance in his career.

All three Penske Fords round out the top five.

FLAGS OF THE WEEK

My green flag of the week is the tire that Goodyear brought to Richmond. What this NextGen car desperately needs is tire fall off so that strategy and tire saving is super important. It was very entertaining to see as there were 6,475 passes under green. That’s the most in seven Gen-7 starts by 2,399. On the other hand, that includes the many green flag pit stops that all drivers had to make, however it is still a very interesting stat.

My yellow flag of the week is some off the track news, about the 2026 schedule. NASCAR social media has hinted at the possibility of All Star race being held at Dover and giving a points paying race to North Wilkesboro. As much as I love Dover, that should not happen. I believe the All Star race should either return to Charlotte, or be held at newer tracks to give NASCAR the opportunity to keep trying new things in races that don’t affect the overall season or points.

My red flag of the week is the playoff format. I think it needs to be changed and I’ve touched on this narrative a couple times this year. Win-and-your-in gives drivers an out. What I mean is that drivers who would not even come close to making the playoffs if it wasn’t for the win-and-in format are getting bailed out. Prior to Dillon’s 10th place finish at Iowa, he had not finished inside the top 10 since Texas on May 4th. Now, he’s in the playoffs because he has one win. The format needs to be tightened a little bit.

THE PLAYOFF PICTURE

Tyler Reddick (+89) and Alex Bowman (+60) currently hold the final two playoff spots in the field of 16.

Now, the maximum amount of points a driver can earn in a race is 60. So, you would think that Reddick and Bowman can go into the final race of the regular season with ease.

Wrong. We’re going to Daytona. Who knows what can happen there.

Mathematically, Reddick could miss the playoffs.

Due to a win-and-in format, if there is a new winner, Bowman has a good points day, and Reddick wrecks out early and doesn’t gain any points, then he could be eliminated.

While all that needing to happen, it’s still not entirely impossible. Daytona is a wildcard and everyone’s last ditch effort to make it.

We also need to look at RFK teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece who could have good days and be there at the end.

Don’t forget about Kyle Busch either. He came up just a few feet short of winning this race last year.

A lot can happen this weekend at Daytona, and you can catch it all live on Saturday night at 7:30PM on NBC.

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