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NASCAR explains why Austin Cindric not suspended for right-rear hook on Ty Dillon at COTA

Brian Jones Profile Picby:Brian Jones•about 16 hours•

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Austin Cindric
Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

NASCAR penalized Austin Cindric for hooking Ty Dillon at the COTA race but did not suspend the veteran driver. When the penalty was announced, NASCAR explained why Cindric was not suspended.

“Driver was traveling at a slower pace on the road course (vs an intermediate/superspeedway),” Fox Sports motorsports reporter Bob Pockrass wrote on X/Twitter. “Dillon had no significant impact or damage; was able to drive on.   No caution. a one-race suspension did not ‘feel’ appropriate.”

Mike Forde, NASCAR’s managing director of racing communications, shared more on the Austin Cindric penalty on the Hauler Talk podcast. “The reason we landed on a points and fine – we take every situation, every violation as its own unique incident, and I know probably fans don’t love hearing that sentence, and it’s said a lot,” Forde said, per Kelly Crandall, of RACER.com. “But it’s said because it has to be said. It’s said because it’s true. Sure, we do look at past instances to help inform us, educate ourselves on how we should handle each subsequent one.

NASCAR shares more on why Austin Cindric was not suspended

“But each incident is very different. Maybe not very different, but each is at least a little bit different and often times very different. In this case, we did feel it was significantly different than the previous two. And the reasons are, you look at it, it is at a road course (with) lower speed, tight confines to begin with, and the result didn’t even draw a caution. Now, obviously, the caution flag doesn’t come out as quickly on road courses anyway, but that did not draw a caution. So, those were really the reasons why we chose to err on the side of letting him race this weekend in Phoenix.”

NASCAR penalized Cindric after hooking Dillon on Sunday. Cindric lost 50 driver points and was fined $50,000. With the loss of driver points, Cindric dropped from 11th to 34th in the standings.

The thought was that Cindric would be suspended for one race because of what NASCAR has done in similar situations. In 2022, NASCAR suspended Bubba Wallace for hitting Kyle Larson. And in 2023, Chase Elliott was suspended for wrecking Denny Hamlin.