Austin Dillon 2014 Review
By Richard Tix
Season Grade: B-
Austin Dillon came into the 2014 season as a favorite, along with Kyle Larson, to win Rookie of the Year. Austin Dillon came short of ROY, but not all was lost in 2014. Dillon still gained a lot of experience throughout the year and still finished second in the ROY award.
Coming into the season the biggest news may have been the number he was driving, not the actual fact that he was running his first full time season at the Cup level. Many fans were outraged that the #3 was being brought back for him. Through the season the rage seemed to die down, but that may have been more because Austin wasn't normally a front runner.
In fact, if I had to sum up his first season I would put him in the 15-20 pack. Which, for a rookie is not a bad thing, but when you are going up for ROY against a guy who is flashing sign's of being a top 5 guy it puts a damper on your season.
If we take a step back and stop comparing him to Kyle Larson and his rookie season we find that Dillon had a decent season where he finished 20th in points. In fact, at one point during the season he looked to also have a shot at the 16th spot in the Chase.
Austin came up short of the Chase in 2014 and his stat line that most people see doesn't look all that amazing (0 wins, 1 top 5, and 4 top 10's), but lets look past that. If you dig deeper you see a more consistent rookie. Dillon may have only finished in the top 10 4 times, but he had 17 top 15's. On top of that he had 27 top 20's on the season. That is only 9 races outside of the top 20 on the season. If he added a few more top 10's it would be the same kind of season his RCR teammate Ryan Newman had (consistent, but not amazing).
So, just because the normal stats we look at as fans (wins, top 5's, and top 10's) do not jump off the page does not mean we can just throw away his first season. It was just that, a first season at the highest level in NASCAR. The bigger test is to continue on a path of getting better each year in his first three seasons and hopefully notching a few more top 10's in 2015.
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