Great day for RCR derailed by late-race wrecks

Rookie Ty Dillon, who drives for Germain Racing — an RCR affiliate — led a career-high 27 laps and was running fourth prior to the final caution. With five laps remaining, Ty Dillon was followed by Ryan Newman in fifth and Austin Dillon in eighth.

When the race returned to green, Ty Dillon, who was on old tires along with Newman, got loose and he bounced off of the No. 31 Chevy then spun into oncoming traffic. Ten cars, including Dillon — and his brother Austin, who was running eight before the restart, were involved in the wreck (WATCH HERE).

Still, RCR has made tremendous gains over last season — and Sunday was no exception. Newman continued on to finish fourth. Austin Dillon finished 12th and Ty Dillon 14th.

“I’m not really sure exactly what happened there off of (Turn) 2,” Newman said. “I know (Ty Dillon) washed up, but I don’t know if he kind of hit the fence and came back down into me or I ran into him. It was just so tight. I had another car on my quarter-panel, but either way it was a hard fought top five for our Caterpillar Chevrolet.

“That was the toughest top five I’ve had in a long time, so we’ve got some work to do.”

For the 25-year-old grandson of Richard Childress, it was his eighth top-20 finish of the season — and his fourth top 15-run in the last six races.

“First of all, I’m really proud of our Germain Racing team,” Ty Dillon said. “I can’t thank Bob Germain enough for giving me the opportunity to come out here and race with these guys, it’s a lifelong dream. To lead laps like that meant a lot to me. We had to restart fourth on old tires and I just think the air off the No. 31 got me a little loose and they left a bunch of sand there off Turn 2 and as soon as I got loose and hit that sand it was all over.

“I feel bad for all the cars that got torn up. But, really, I don’t really know what the No. 31 or myself could have done any different to stay out of that crash. Proud of our effort today. We proved to ourselves as a team that we can run up front with the big boys and just proud of our effort by our GEICO Chevy.”

Dillon’s 27 laps led at Dover is the most in a race by the No. 13 Germain car in the team’s Cup history. His 33 laps led for the season ranks second to Casey Mears’ 41 circuits led in 2012.

Paul Menard, who finished 33rd, was also in the mix with 50 laps remaining in the race. He ran as high as fifth before he collided with Chris Buescher in Turn 2 on Lap 344.

“The No. 37 (Buescher) just got loose and wrecked us,” Menard said.