NASCAR: Winners And Losers From Texas

Loser: Austin Dillon

Austin Dillon had already earned a career-best best finish when he placed third at Talladega back in May, but he was looking for the first win of his Cup Series career at Texas as he had won the pole for the third time.

Dillon started the race off by losing the lead to Joey Logano but ran a solid race throughout the night. Towards the end, he made his way back into the top-5 after a late pass on Logano. Later on, after coming out of Turn 4, he and Kevin Harvick made contact and the No. 3 car went into the wall, ultimately ending his night and sending him home with a 37th-place finish.

Dillon had some interesting words on Harvick after the incident (via Sporting News):

"“He sucked down on my door all the way, like on it,” Dillon said from the garage after exiting his car. “I get it, you’ve got to hold a guy down, but he sucked down on my door and got me tight. That is the reason I slid up in front of him and then he didn’t lift, he just turned me. There are two more weeks left.”"

It looked like Harvick’s fault at first glance, but the driver of the No. 4 car apologized after the race (via NASCAR):

"“Just want to apologize to the 3,” Harvick said. “He kind of came up there and got loose … when he checked up, I hit him. That wasn’t anything that I wanted to see.”"

Regardless of what did or didn’t happen, Dillon looked like he was heading for the seventh top-5 of his career, unfortunately, he was involved in a late accident that derailed what had been a good run.