Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to Kyle Busch calling out NASCAR for Austin Cindric penalty

It took all of a few minutes after NASCAR made its penalty ruling on Austin Cindric and his right-rear hook of Ty Dillon for others in the sport to weigh in, most notably Kyle Busch. The driver of the No. 8 car was vociferous.

“I think intent is intent. I do not agree with the call there,” Busch said. “Don’t care where it is — Daytona, Martinsville, Watkins Glen and it’s not his first time either. He got off with that one.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. also weighed in shortly after the fact, even taking into account Busch’s message about the Austin Cindric incident. He’s not quite on the same page.

“Listen, if you have a history of doing these things, NASCAR’s going to … that’s going to play in,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download. “It’s common sense that that would play into a decision that NASCAR might make. We talked on the Dirty Air show Tuesday, and I go back and forth with this one.

“I understand what some of the drivers are saying as far as Kyle Busch and Denny (Hamlin), who are like, ‘Hey man, a right hook is a right hook. I don’t care if you’re going 10 miles an hour or 200 miles an hour, right hook is a right hook and it should all be treated the same.’ But yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can agree with that.”

The big question mark in all of this seems to be Austin Cindric’s history as a driver. Busch pointed to a previous incident.

In discussing things with his show’s co-host, Earnhardt attempted to reflect back on what that scenario might have been. He landed on St. Louis.

At that race in St. Louis, Cindric made contact with Dillon, causing Dillon to wreck and collecting Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the process. Many thought the hook was intentional, but Cindric took to Twitter to defend himself, using data from the crash.

“I do remember Austin Cindric having an issue or some type of an incident where it was at St. Louis with Austin Dillon, and I believe there was speculation and debate after that race about Austin’s maneuver, or a maneuver, that wrecked the 3 car,” Earnhardt said.

“So mabye in the last several hours, Kyle Busch, who drives for RCR, has been involved in conversations that are happening in that group, considering it involved Ty Dillon, who’s indirectly connected through blood with RCR. I’m sure that conversation around what happened at St. Louis has come up. So maybe that’s what Kyle’s referring to when he says it’s happened before.”

In any case, Earnhardt didn’t put a ton of stock into St. Louis as having much to do with this ruling. He didn’t feel the two were overly connected, given the unclear outcome on the prior incident.

“Well the thing about that one is I don’t know that they ever could nail down whether Austin Cindric had purposely done anything at St. Louis,” Earnhardt said. “It wasn’t quite, maybe, as obvious. I can’t really remember seeing it in my mind exactly what happened at St. Louis, but I believe there’d been a lot of speculation and no hard evidence to really convict or admit guilt or assign guilt.”