A. Dillon celebrates win with butt tattoo
Winner of 500 gets ‘Daytona champ’ in permanent ink
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Hours after he won the 60th Daytona 500 on Sunday in spectacular fashion — when he led only on the final lap — Austin Dillon made sure his unlikely victory was going to stick with him for a long time.
So Dillon went out with his buddies and crew members and got a tattoo. On his butt.
Not that you will be able to see it anytime soon. “Yeah, I got a tattoo last night. It says Daytona 500 champ on it,” the 27-year-old Dillon said Monday morning during a news conference at the Daytona 500 Championship Breakfast. “It’s pretty cool. And you’ll never be able to see it either. Whitney (his wife, a former NFL cheerleader) is probably the only one who’s going to see it for a while.
“Actually a lot of guys got tattoos last night. Everyone was lined up. It was pretty cool.”
One who didn’t was crew chief Justin Alexander, who promised to ink up his face a bit if the team wins a championship.
A day after what was by far the biggest triumph of his career, it still hasn’t sunk in that Dillon, whose brother Ty is also a driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, won the Super Bowl of stock car racing. The moment he crossed the finish line just ahead of rookie Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., Dillon went from little known driver who previously had one win in the Cup series — last year’s Coca-Cola 600 — to the toast of the racing world. Suddenly, Dillon’s name is on every racing fan’s lips.
“It truly won’t sink in for a long time, but seeing that race car down there, I want to go hug it,” Dillon said of his No. 3 Chevrolet Camaro, which will be put on display for a year in Daytona International Speedway’s ticket and tours building. “It’s a pretty race car, and it brought us to victory lane. I’ll never forget that.”
Dillon, who became the 18th driver to win both the Daytona 500 and Coca-Cola 600 — NASCAR’s most famous race and its longest one — had 500 text messages Sunday night on his phone. “I haven’t looked through them all, but I’m going to savor every moment of that,” Dillon said. “I can truly say I got all my friends here, and a part of this race team and the ones that aren’t here all contacted me on my phone.”
Richard Childress, the owner of Richard Childress Racing and grandfather of the Dillon boys, was blown away by his grandson’s victory. It was 20 years ago that Childress and his driver Dale Earnhardt Sr. celebrated Earnhardt’s only Daytona 500 victory. Three years later, Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the 500.
Asked to compare the two victories two decades apart, Childress said, “They’re both so different. I know how much it meant to Dale to win the Daytona 500. He came so close so many times, and it just wouldn’t have been right if he didn’t have it on his résumé. That was one of the most special wins I’ve ever been involved in.
“Then last night to see my grandson 20 years later, and win the Daytona 500, it’s hard to beat blood.”
Dillon will be in New York on Tuesday for the champion’s media tour, then it’s on to Atlanta Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.
“We’re still trying to win races,” Dillon said. “This is the beginning, I feel like.”