Austin Dillon calls out Daniel Hemric after Las Vegas crash: 'He flat out wrecked me'

Austin Dillon was not happy with Daniel Hemric for wrecking him during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas on Sunday. After the race, Dillon spoke to reporters about the crash that led to him finishing last.

“(Daniel Hemric) flat-out wrecked me. No clue why,” Dillon said, per NBC Sports. “He’s got three races left, and I don’t know if he was just over his head. He stays in the gas into (Turn 3) until he hits me. I don’t know what that was. It was a hard hit, but I’m good.”

This is the second consecutive race where Dillon finished in the 30s. 2024 has been an interesting season for the 34-year-old NASCAR driver as he won the Cook Out 400 at Richmond in August, snapping a 68-race winless drought. However, NASCAR stripped Dillon’s playoff eligibility after he wrecked Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano during the final lap of the race.

Austin Dillon misses playoffs for wrecking Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin

“I think in all due respect to the appeal process, we looked at this and the totality of everything that happened as you enter Turn 3 and as the cars got to the start/finish line,” NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said at the time. “So, as we look through all of that data, we came to the conclusion that a line had been crossed. Our sport has been based going for many, many years, forever, on good, hard racing. Contact has been acceptable. We felt like, in this case, that the line was crossed.”

Dillon said he didn’t do anything wrong. “I’ve seen Denny and Joey make moves that have been you know, running people up the track to win,” Dillon explained. “This was the first opportunity in two years for me to be able to get a win, I drove in there and kept all four tires turning across the start-finish line.”

Hemric has competed in 71 Cup Series races in his career and has yet to record a win. The 33-year-old has recorded four top-10 finishes this year in his second season as a full-time driver.