Austin Dillon wins at Richmond and advances to the playoffs

Austin Dillon raced his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet into victory lane at Richmond Raceway when it mattered most. The win guarantees him a spot in the playoffs and the opportunity to contend for the NASCAR Cup Series championship.

It was his first victory of 2025 and his sixth career victory in the series.

“Man, it’s so sweet,” Dillon said. “My dad prayed with me before the race. He was at our hunting land doing some food plots. It’s just so special. Every one of these means so much to me. My grandfather, for all that he’s put up in believing in me, because there’s been a lot of ups and downs. It could have been easy for him to change the drivers in this No. 3 car. Today, it feels really darn good.”

Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman finished second and is currently in the final playoff transfer spot with a 60-point advantage over Chris Buescher. But that could change if there is a new winner next week as the series heads to Daytona International Speedway for the final race of the regular season.

“Yeah, certainly really stressful on a lot of fronts,” Bowman admitted as he looks ahead to next week’s race at Daytona. “I mean, I think with the way that race normally goes, it’s about a must-win at that point because I think you’re most likely going to have a new winner. We just need to go execute and try to win the race. That’s all we can really do.

“Just proud of all the guys to continue to work hard and try to overcome the situation we’re in. We’ll keep digging.”

Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, and Austin Cindric completed the top five at Richmond. Kyle Larson, Daniel Suárez, Josh Berry, Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top 10.

“It kind of surprised me. I thought I was being the most conservative I was all night, and it was the worst result, but, overall, a good night. This is a place I struggle at a little bit, and we work really hard to get better here, and it was a really good showing for us and a really good showing for all of Team Penske.” Blaney said.

Chase Elliott was involved in a multi-car accident that ended his race early. It also effectively paved the way for William Byron, who finished 12th, to secure the Regular-Season Championship.

“I think Kyle (Busch) just didn’t know that we were trying to squeeze by the wreck on the bottom. He was kind of angled back towards the bottom of the racetrack, and I was just coming through. It’s just unfortunate. We had a good start to the race. We kind of got on the wrong end there in the beginning and lost some track position. We got behind the No. 19 (Chase Briscoe) and got a penalty. I thought we were in a pretty good spot right there. We finally got on some better tires, and we were making our way through there well, so I was excited to see where that was going to go, but unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance.”

The race featured five caution flags for 44 laps, and 24 lead changes among 11 drivers.

After Richmond, William Byron leads the NASCAR Cup Series standings by 68 points over Chase Elliott, 73 points over Denny Hamlin, 80 points over Kyle Larson, and 83 points over Ryan Blaney.

Next Saturday, the Cup Series heads to Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 regular-season finale. It will air on NBC at 7:30 p.m. ET with radio coverage provided by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

NASCAR Cup Series Race Number 25
Race Results for the Cook Out 400 – Saturday, August 16, 2025
Richmond Raceway – Richmond, VA – 0.75 – Mile Paved