Earlier this week, NASCAR reported that Austin Cindric would be docked 50 points and $50,000 after right-hooking Ty Dillon in retaliation for being run off the track early on in the EchoPark 400 Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.
This penalty sends Cindric and Team Penske’s No. 2 team tumbling down the NASCAR Cup Standings from 11th to 35th, but the saving grace for that team is that Cindric is still allowed to race this weekend at Phoenix Raceway.
The two most recent penalties for similar right hooks saw the acting driver hit with a one-week suspension: first Bubba Wallace at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2022 and then Chase Elliott at Charlotte Motor Speedway. NASCAR Director of Racing Communications Mike Forde says that the reason for a lesser penalty against Cindric was decided since this incident happened at a road course and not an oval, where the speeds are much higher.
“In this case, we did feel that it was significantly different than the previous two,” Forde said on NASCAR’s Hauler Talk Podcast. “And the reasons are it is at a road course with lower speeds to begin with, and the results didn’t even draw a caution flag. So those were really the reasons why we chose to err on the side of letting [Cindric] race this weekend in Phoenix with a fine and a significant driver points penalty.”
Ahead of racing at Phoenix, Dillon told reporters that he expected a suspension since it seemed like that was the status quo created by the Wallace and Elliott suspensions.
“I was expecting a one-race suspension,” Dillon told at track media. “I’m glad they did something, though. I think 50 points and $50,000 is probably enough to make him think about doing something like that again. But I think a one-race suspension is what most of us expected. They set a standard couple years ago.”
Dillon believes that NASCAR making the type of track the deciding differential is an instance of them deciding too many things in a gray area of their own making.
“That’s where maybe NASCAR gets themselves in a little bit of trouble, is when you try to play in gray areas of what’s fast enough,” Dillon answered Fox Sport’s Bob Pockrass. [NASCAR] for the last eight years of my career do a safety meeting at Daytona and show us a picture of a car sitting dad sideways getting hit by one going 75 to a 100 mph and the amount of damage that does is pretty incredible so lucky nobody was very near the back I guess and nobody was coming and couldn’t see me when I was dead stopped, parallel to the front stretch. Would that have been enough to get the penalty?
I just think we have to [do] a better job of just making those calls black and white and setting a little bit better standard.”
Cindric admits that he made a bad call when faced with adversity and, coupled with a poor start to the season, reacted badly. When asked if he thought his penalty was fair, he said it wasn’t up to him and that he would accept NASCAR’s judgment call.
“It’s not on me to decide what penalties are or aren’t; it’s up to NASCAR,” Cindric told media, including Pockrass. “The penalty I definitely have to accept and work hard to make it up from.”
“I got forced into the runoff, forced off track, and handled myself poorly in the face of adversity, and I was penalized for it,” Cindric said.
Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.