Just four days ago, Austin Dillon was needing medical attention during the last NASCAR race run this past Wednesday night in Martinsville. The crash panel was knocked out of his No. 3 Chevrolet during an early race incident which saw Dillon not only get sick while trying to rough it out, his water pack in his car spilled and started boiling in his seat, causing burns to his backside.

It was a rough night for him. That came after a rough race at Atlanta in a 500 mile event run in high temps under humid conditions. Then, his wife delivered birth to their first child overnight.

So, you could forgive Dillon for just getting by on Sunday at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in what drivers called this week as the most grueling stretch for NASCAR races in a long while. Dillon, became a father in the middle of this.

Still, he shined in the race, bringing his No. 3 Chevrolet home seventh for his third top 10 and fourth top 11 in his last five starts on the season. Also, it was Dillon’s fourth straight top 11 finish on the 1.5-mile track as his finishes have gotten better and better each trip to Homestead.

“It feels great to be able to capture a top-10 finish for my first race as a new dad, and to bring home a solid result for everyone on the Dow Coatings and Behr teams,” Dillon said. “The No. 3 Dow Coatings Chevrolet was much stronger at the end of the race than it was at the beginning of the race, so I am proud of everyone for sticking in there until the end.

“We started off way too loose, but adjustments on pit road helped us improve handling. By the end of Stage 2, the handling transitioned to tight, but we were really fast, especially in clean air.

“We worked our way up to seventh when we were issued a penalty for an uncontrolled tire during a pit stop and had to battle through the field to earn our seventh-place finish. We had a fast Chevy at the end of the race, and I’m proud of everyone at Richard Childress Racing. It was a solid effort all around for our organization this weekend.”

He went from 25th to 14th to 12th to 11th to 11th again to 8th to 7th.

Then, throw in Tyler Reddick’s night to come from 24th to finish fourth and finished third and second respectively in the two stages, gave RCR their first dual top 10 finishes in a Cup race since 2018.

It was a big statement that RCR is improving. See, this very spot last November, team owner Richard Childress said that by bringing a driver of Reddick’s caliber up to replace Daniel Hemric, the 2019 Cup Series Rookie of the Year, would take this team to new depths.

They not only made that driver change, they made several shifts to team personnel. Childress knew that 2020 was going to be the start of a resurgence for RCR. So far, he’s proving to be right.