NASCAR insiders weigh in on whether Austin Dillon wreck of Brad Keselowski was intentional

There wasn’t necessarily a ton of driver conflict in the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville, but a late incident between Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski certainly draw some scrutiny. It had Keselowski, who was spun into the wall by Dillon, promising that “turnabout is fair play.”

In other words, Dillon should step carefully. Keselowski’s spotter, TJ Majors, accused Dillon of wrecking Keselowski on purpose.

And Brad Keselowski certainly seemed to think the same after exiting the infield care center. He said as much to Amazon Prime’s broadcast team.

“I don’t know. I know I got hit from behind,” Keselowski said. “Can’t really put myself in somebody else’s head. But it’s a shame. I felt like we had just made the adjustments on the car we needed to be competitive. It’s pretty clear he wrecked me intentionally after seeing that replay. So turnabout’s fair play.”

A pair of NASCAR insiders for The Athletic weren’t so sure the wreck from Dillon was intentional. In fact, had Majors not made his comments, they’re not even sure the incident would have raised doubt.

“I don’t think so. I really don’t,” Jordan Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast. “And I would love to have seen that unfold without the audio of TJ saying that. Does that makes sense? What I’m saying is I think it shrouds, I think it casts a suspicion there that wouldn’t have even been thought about. So I think this conversation wouldn’t be had if TJ hadn’t said that so emphatically on the radio and said that multiple times, too.”

Brad Keselowski certainly took the worst of it in the second incident of the day between the two drivers. Earlier, Keselowski had gotten in front of Dillon and caused a spin after a late pit move by Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Still, after seeing it, Bianchi was convinced the second wreck wasn’t intentional on Dillon’s part. Not at all.

“I don’t think he did,” Bianchi said. “I watched it many, many times. It looks like a lot of accidents you see on these kind of things where things are happening in front of you and you hit the brakes and the guy in front of you slams on his brakes and you hit him. I don’t take umbrage with it. I didn’t think so.

“I talked to Austin Dillon after the race and he was emphatic that he did not do it intentional. He said it was just part of it.”

For Jeff Gluck, Bianchi’s fellow insider from The Athletic, the situation didn’t make sense to intentionally take someone out. He explained.

“Not on purpose. I don’t think that’s where you’re going exact revenge from somebody, somebody goes down to the apron and you just go, ‘This is my moment, I’m going to spin him across the track up into traffic,'” Gluck said. “I personally don’t think that. However, are you saying there that he did not cut him a break? Because that apparently is some sort of a new standard.”

The reference? A Ryan Preece penalty by NASCAR for an incident in which it wasn’t even entirely clear he made contact with Ty Gibbs.

Preece was docked 25 points and fined $50,000. Mostly because he made comments on the radio threatening retaliation for an earlier incident on the track. Dillon made no such comments about Brad Keselowski.

“Certainly they’re not going to penalize Austin Dillon for this, because nobody said anything,” Gluck said. “They’re not going to. But if he had said something. If he had done that and said, ‘Serves you right,’ or whatever. Or even [Richard Childress] had come on the radio and said, ‘That’s right, he deserved that’ or something like that it would have been something different.

“But nobody said anything and then Austin came on the radio later and said, ‘I was already on the brakes, what even happened there to get everybody jammed up?’ I personally don’t think that was an intentional move. But certainly unfortunate for Brad.”