Austin Cindric razzes Ty Gibbs in response to Ryan Preece wreck, Gibbs fires back

During media prior to the Ambetter Health 400 this week, Austin Cindric was in the middle of a media session discussing the controversial Ryan Preece crash at the Daytona 500 when he was interrupted by a most conspicuous person.

Cindric was discussing the Preece crash, which involved the driver of the No. 60 car getting completely airborne after ramping over the hood of Erik Jones‘ car.

As he was discussing, he was interrupted.

“Getting airborne, it’s no different than at Bowman Gray with how the 54…” Cindric was saying when another driver walked in, according to Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut.

It was none of than Ty Gibbs, driver of the No. 54, who promptly exclaimed “ME!” upon hearing Cindric’s response.

The two incidents were similar in a certain sense.

That said, Gibbs’ ramping of the side of Justin Haley’s car came as a frustrated response after an earlier incident on the track. Ryan Preece’s was completely accidental.

Preece made contact with Jones’ car after Christopher Bell was bumped by Cole Custer and hit the wall, drifting back down the track toward where Preece was racing. He careened into the side of Preece, pushing Preece’s car directly into Jones’.

As the car slipped over Jones’ hood, the front two tires went completely airborne and created a slipstream underneath the car. Eventually the whole ride would flip over, sending Ryan Preece on a hard-contact spin up into the wall before he finally landed back on four tires again.

It was a crash in which Ryan Preece was shaken up enough to warn NASCAR about.

A week later, it made for an interesting comparison by Cindric, right as Gibbs walked into the room.

In any case, after taking a hard jolt, Gibbs is likely to agree that the kind of contact he and Preece made is not one you want to be putting yourself through if you can avoid it.