AVONDALE, Ariz. — Ty Dillon is glad NASCAR penalized Austin Cindric for turning him last weekend at Circuit of the Americas, but was surprised that Cindric was not suspended.
Dillon wasn’t the only driver surprised by NASCAR’s penalty to Cindric.
NASCAR docked Cindric 50 points and fined him $50,000 this week for hooking Dillon in the right rear in retaliation for being moved up the track by Dillon.
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“I was expecting a one-race suspicion,” Dillon said. “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. You hope it’s enough, but I think a one-race suspension is what most of us expected.”
Cindric said of the penalty he received:“It’s not up to me to decide. … It’s up to NASCAR. A penalty you definitely have to accept and work hard to make it up from.”
Mike Forde, NASCAR managing director of racing communications, said in this week’s “Hauler Talk” podcast that Cindric was not suspended a race because the contact took place on a road course with lower speeds and tight confines and the result didn’t draw a caution flag.
Kyle Busch said that should not matter.
“Intent is intent,” Busch said Saturday at Phoenix Raceway. “Put it in the rule book, a right hook will result in a one-race suspension period.”
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Chase Briscoe also would like to see NASCAR treat a right hook the same regardless of the situation.
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s at Talladega or Martinsville, whatever, the consequence is still the same,” he said. “The guy who gets right-rear hooked is going to the back, is probably going to crash his car to a certain degree. I definitely think that it doesn’t matter what speed you’re going or how much the car gets torn up. It’s still the intent of doing it.”
Erik Jones said NASCAR got the call right on Cindric.
“If we go to Vegas next week and someone does it, it’s not OK,” Jones said. “I think it’s pretty well established where it’s going to be an issue and what’s going to be an issue. I think what NASCAR was saying at COTA and I agree with them, it was no different than spinning a guy out on a short track.”
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Dillon said he felt he was put in a vulnerable position due to the contact in the right rear by Cindric.
“I think that’s where maybe NASCAR gets themselves in a little bit of trouble when you try to play gray areas,” he said. “What’s fast enough? For the past eight years of my career, they do a safety meeting at Daytona and they show us a picture of a car sitting dead sideways that gets hit by one that’s going 75 to 100 miles per hour and the amount of damage that does is pretty incredible.
“… Luckily, no one was coming and couldn’t see me and hit me while I’m dead stopped parallel to the frontstretch. Would that have been enough to get a penalty?
“I just think we’ve just got to do a better job of just kind of making those calls black and white and setting a little bit better standard. I know they’re in a tough (situation), they’ve got to make decisions. To me, they did a good enough job of making something out of it. But just got to make sure that he knows specifically that he can’t do that again, especially to me.”
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