during practice for the NASCAR XFINITY Series Sports Clips Haircuts VFW 200 at Darlington Raceway on September 1, 2017 in Darlington, South Carolina.

NASCAR driver tells the story of why he was threatened with a gun after the Southern 500


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Austin Dillon was too amped after his impressive fourth place finish at the Southern 500 to sleep. So, instead of just staying in bed, he decided to go for a walk. On NBSSports' NASCAR America, Dillon recounted the story of a night that could have ended tragically.

At four in the morning, Dillon and a few of his friends were still up after the race and went looking for something to do.

"We had a solid run so I just hung out outside my motor home a little bit, had a couple nice drinks and still had my driver's suit on," Dillon said. "We decided to check out the track, so a couple of us rode my golf cart around the track a couple times, and that was cool."

But, like anyone up at four am will tell you, it's easy to get bored pretty quickly. After goofing off with his friends for a bit, Dillon went to see what the common folk were up to at this hour.

"Heck, I wanted to go see what the fans were up to, so we rolled into the infield and I walked into a couple motor homes," Dillon said. "It was 4 in the morning at this point. They had gone night-night. People were starting to leave, it was pretty funny. I was waving to them, signing autographs. This lady had an Austin Dillon shirt on, leaving with her husband, taking their motor home out at 4:30 a.m."

Sounds like a fun time, until it almost went too far. Dillon ended up finding someone who was not as eager to party as he was. Dillon explains:

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"We walked in a motor home and one guy said, 'I've got a gun in my sleeping bag.'"

Oh! That'll put a damper on the night! It's all fun and games until someone pulls a gun! Dillon had the perfect response to a potentially terrifying encounter:

"I said, 'Hey, man, I'm not Kyle Busch, it's OK.'"

Related: Austin Dillon put in hard work and took some hard hits to get where he is now