NASCAR Insiders: Suspension coming for Austin Cindric for Ty Dillon retaliation?

Perhaps the most intriguing storyline coming out of the weekend at COTA is what NASCAR will do with an incident on the track between Austin Cindric and Ty Dillon.

On the fourth lap of the race, Dillon pushed Cindric off the track. Cindric then caught up and leaned into the right rear bumper of Dillon, hooking him and causing him to spin into the wall.

“I’m watching the car video as we talk,” NASCAR insider for The Athletic Jordan Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast. “It’s very, I don’t want to say subtle, but it’s not as deliberate as just like a complete veering like turning left kind of thing. But it does move. He does go into him and it does seem intentional.”

The question now is whether NASCAR will penalize Austin Cindric for the move and, if so, in what fashion.

The organization has penalized similar incidents in the recent past, tagging Carson Hocevar for an intentional spinning of Harrison Burton under caution last season.

“I don’t know how NASCAR handles this, because it almost, the precedent’s been set,” Bianchi said. “We’ve seen the last few years how these things go. It’s really tough. It’s not a high-speed area of the track, they’re just kind of coming through a corner. It’s not like they’re at the top of the hill or anything like that at speed. It’s really tough to look at this and say, ‘Is this suspension worthy?’ Because I do feel like if you suspend it for this, the box is really, really open.”

Another NASCAR insider laid out the historical penalties for drivers who intentionally retaliate during a race, outlining the possible penalties for Austin Cindric.

“So Seth Eggert, who keeps the retaliations chart on Motorsports Reference, the site they’re doing with all the charts and all that stuff, he tweeted during the race that looking through the retaliations chart, when both drivers have continued in the race — Ty Dillon was able to continue today and obviously Cindric did as well — he posts that it’s historically been a points penalty, not a suspension,” The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck said on the podcast. “Now obviously I don’t know that that’s a policy by NASCAR, I’ve never heard NASCAR say that. But in his big, huge chart of all the retaliations that he has on the site that he keeps updated, when both drivers are able to continue, even if it’s a right-rear hook I guess, it’s been a points penalty.

“Take that for what it’s worth, that’s historically what it’s done. NASCAR could probably also say, ‘Hey, it’s a road course.'”

There are enough mitigating factors where it’s possible NASCAR could come in light on any sort of punishment.

“This was a little bit more of a subtle, more of an old-school payback in a way,” Bianchi said. “And again, I’m not saying it’s OK, it’s still a right-rear hook and the precedent’s been set.”

But precedent will also continue to be set based on how NASCAR rules on the Austin Cindric incident this week. Go too light and you might encourage other drivers to retaliate. Go too heavy and there will likely be immense backlash.

It’s not the most fun position for NASCAR to be in.

“You’ve got to be very careful about this. If you do this you are really opening up the box,” Bianchi said. “To this point you’re going to start seeing suspensions on the regular. I don’t know how you handle this if you’re NASCAR. I really don’t. It’s going to be fascinating and it’s going to set a really big precedent going forward.”