Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick differed on their contact Sunday at Pocono Raceway, after which Dillon threw his helmet at his former teammate.
The two made contact on lap 42 going into Turn 1 when Reddick hit Dillon in the left rear. Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet slammed the outside wall and then slid down the track and to a stop in the grass.
“I thought I was doing the right thing going into the middle lane of the track,” Dillon said. “I wasn’t on the bottom lane, I was going to hold the middle. He drove up into me from the bottom lane. I just heard one interview where (Dale Earnhardt) Jr. thought I started coming down (into) the corner, and that’s kind of natural to enter the corner that way.
“I don’t know (but) I’m (expletive) about it because, from my perspective, I couldn’t see him. I know I was three-wide, but my left front is in front of him. That’s the bigger thing. I’m in front of him, so I didn’t come down egregiously. He drove in the corner deep enough to try and get me back, to get his right front in front of my left front. That was not possible with how I drove in the corner, and he wiped me out at the fastest part of the track.”
After climbing out of his car under his own power, Dillon threw his helmet at Reddick when the field drove back by the scene.
“I was just trying to hit him,” Dillon said. “I’m (expletive) I didn’t lead it; they were going probably 65mph. If I was started at the front of the car, I probably would have got him in the door.”
Reddick, who departed Richard Childress Racing to join 23XI Racing this season, denied there was anything intentional at play. In acknowledging he knew Dillon didn’t have a lot of room, Reddick wasn’t trying to make a squeeze move or run him up the racetrack.
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In the immediate aftermath of the race, Reddick only had the replay to go by. However, he plans on looking at SMT data to get a better understanding of what happened even as he said by the time he realized what Dillon was doing, he was going for the brake pedal.
“The biggest thing is I’m glad he’s OK because that’s a big hit,” Reddick said. “But we’re three wide, I’m trying to make it into the corner and I had one plan of approach and he had another, and unfortunately, just made contact. We hadn’t really had any moments today or anything really to put us in a spot where we would intentionally run into each other.”
Reddick was also ready for the helmet throw. He saw Dillon wind up and go for it but wasn’t sure where the helmet landed.
“I thought I missed it,” Reddick said. “It doesn’t count then if it hit the ground first.”
Reddick finished second. Dillon left Pocono with his seventh DNF of the season.
“I’m not really (mad) about (the hit), I’m just (mad) about (how) it hasn’t been a great season for us,” Dillon said. “We’re having a pretty solid run, minding our own. He knows why he got to that position which is because the No. 6 (Brad Keselowski) got tight off the corner and he got a run, tried to split us three wide, and we wrecked into Turn 1.”