Following a flat tire that caused heavy contact to his No. 3 Chevrolet resulting in many laps behind the wall, it looks as though Miles the Monster has taken a big bite out of Ty Dillon’s championship hopes. With a 28th place finish at Dover, Dillon has slipped back to fourth in the XFINITY Series standings, 39 points behind Chris Buescher.
Dillon was running in the top-10 early in the event when a tire would let go at lap 20, causing Dillon to go up the track and hit the outside wall.
“It sounded like a car exploded, a brake rotor, and I think that we ran it over,” Dillon said. “The car was running fine before that without any issues. All of a sudden I heard pow and hit the wall. You can’t blame NASCAR or anybody – you have these issues where cars that don’t run all the time will break in front of you. It happens.”
Despite being almost a full race behind Buescher with five races left, the youngster doesn’t seem fazed at all as he feels confident that they will make up the gap. He cited back to earlier this year in July where he was just over 40 points behind after getting caught up in the big one at Daytona and a 16th at Kentucky. Though with three top-nine finishes in the next three races, Dillon was able to close the gap back down to 20 points.
“We know we can do it, and we’re building faster cars than we’ve ever built,” he commented. “I know in my heart I can go win some of these races and get back in this thing. These guys – they’re awesome on my team. We’ll just keep putting on a show for you guys.”
Dillon added that he knows it will be tough, but says that if they’re able to nail up some wins – as he is predicting, it’ll make it easier.
The climb will begin this coming weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. While Dillon hasn’t won in his previous three starts on the 1.5-mile oval, he finished seventh in the spring.
He may be down, but given he’s less than a race back, he’s not out quite yet. I kind of like him and feel he and anyone in the top-4 still has at least a fighting chance to win it all. The farthest back ones would need some help, like a win or something to happen to Buescher, though.