Dillon's Image, Reputation Will Struggle If Grandpa/Owner Keeps Stepping In

It was nice to see a little beating and banging return to Bristol Motor Speedway during Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Thunder Valley. With the beating and banding came some of the fiery tempers that once were synonymous with the racetrack.

The biggest sign that Bristol was “back” as people are saying was when the seemingly most even-keeled personality in the sport, Trevor Bayne, confronted a driver after the race finished. In the waning laps of the race Bayne and Austin Dillon were running hard side-by-side when Dillon lost control of his car and wrecked Bayne, who was running for a top five finish in a rare Nationwide Series start for him this season, due to lack of sponsorship. 

 

The incident mirrored another one involving Dillon earlier in the race when the driver of the number three Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet wrecked fellow Nationwide regular Justin Allgaier. That incident irritated Allgaier enough to slam into the side of Dillon’s car under caution. 

Bayne’s confrontation with Dillon reportedly occurred on pit road after ESPN’s telecast of the race had gone off the air. According to NASCAR reporters on the scene the two drivers engaged in a heated conversation that didn’t turn that physical, but did include each driver laying his hands on the other at different points. The angry chat was reportedly broken up after a bit when Dillon’s car owner and grandfather Richard Childress stepped in. This is the part that annoys me. 

Childress, despite being the car owner and especially because of being Dillon’s grandfather, really has no business stepping in between two kids in their early ‘20s hashing out things over an on-track incident. You’ve got to let the drivers handle themselves in this situation and what Childress did was actually a great disservice to Dillon, because it makes it seem like Dillon can’t hold his own among other driver or fight his own fights. To be a tough driver and frankly a man in the sport of NASCAR you’re going to have to learn to fight your own fights or others will push you around. 

Dillon, who is one of the more smaller and unintimidating (he oddly uses the old “Intimidator” Dale Earnhardt’s car number) drivers in the sport, is often seen wearing a cowboy hat at the racetrack, but I’ve got some news for him, having your granddaddy step in for you when the heat is on is far from “cowboying up”. Now, I know that Dillon probably didn’t call his grandfather and car owner over during the middle of the confrontation, but he definitely should let Childress know that him butting in will effectively damage his image and reputation.