Tyler Reddick explains Austin Dillon incident, helmet throw at Pocono
While Denny Hamlin ultimately stole the show, the second biggest NASCAR drama from Pocono has to be Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon. Dillon did not appreciate being spun out and wrecked, and it was a hard wreck. So, he decided to let his former RCR teammate know about it and threw his helmet at the No. 45 as Reddick came back around.
After the race, Tyler Reddick came home with a P2 finish while Dillon was stuck down in P34 with his DNF. You can understand the frustration from the No. 3 team, including Richard Childress himself who said some not-nice things about Reddick on the radio.
However, Reddick didn’t really do anything wrong. Dillon came down a bit, he thought he held his line.
“I knew we didn’t have a lot of room,” Reddick said after the race, via Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports. “But I definitely wasn’t trying to squeeze him or run him up the race track, or anything like that. There’s plenty of ways to look back at it and analyze it you know, we’ll certainly look at SMT [data] to try and get a better understanding of what happened beyond just the replay. By the time I realized he was going to be coming down across the race track the way he was, I tried to go right to the brake pedal but it was too late and contact was made.”
As for the helmet throw? Well, Tyler Reddick saw it coming.
“He had a wind-up, I kinda knew it was coming so I was ready for it.”
Austin Dillon was not happy with Tyler Reddick
To put it simply, Austin Dillon was “mad” after the incident with Tyler Reddick. You can understand that. He’s not had the season he has wanted this year. His new teammate Kyle Busch has three wins and is a future Hall of Famer. A DNF in a race where you felt like you could get a solid finish – that’s tough.
AD said his helmet throw was to let Rddick know “I was mad.” As far as any kind of payback, the driver kept it honest. “No, I just need to start wrecking some people.”
The two being former teammates makes it a little more interesting. However, after that huge hit Dillon took, I think he would have reacted the same way regardless of who it was behind the wheel.
Tyler Reddick really didn’t do anything wrong. Still, if Dillon needs to use it as motivation, so be it. I don’t think we will see direct retaliation on the track. But the next river that goes three-wide with AD should be on high alert.