NASCAR suspending another driver for one race?

There is a debate over whether NASCAR should suspend Austin Cindric for one race after his contact with Austin Dillon at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon wrecked out of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, and he inadvertently took JTG Daugherty Racing’s Ricky Stenhouse Jr. with him.

Upon further review, it was evident that Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet was hit by the No. 2 Ford of Team Penske’s Austin Cindric as the field made their way down the front straightaway of the four-turn, 1.25-mile (2.012-kilometer) Madison, Illinois oval.

The contact led to Dillon’s No. 3 Chevrolet veering right, straight into Stenhouse’s No. 47 Chevrolet. The incident led to a red flag for wall repairs, and both Dillon and Stenhouse were knocked out of the race. Cindric remained in the race and finished in 13th place.

Team owner Richard Childress stated that Cindric intentionally retaliated against Dillon and hooked him in the right rear.

Austin Dillon said the same thing, noting that Austin Cindric should be suspended for the next NASCAR Cup Series race.

Bubba Wallace was suspended for hooking Kyle Larson in the right rear at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last October, and Chase Elliott was suspended only last week for doing the same thing to Denny Hamlin at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Wallace’s move also took out Christopher Bell, while Elliott’s move didn’t take out anybody else, yet both drivers were suspended. Surely the fact that the contact from Cindric led to Stenhouse being taken out as an innocent bystander won’t sit well with some.

However, one angle makes it appear as though Cindric didn’t actually turn left, and it was Dillon who unintentionally drove up the track and into him, thus resulting in the wreck.

https://twitter.com/josephcluttrell/status/1665723282375561216

Having said that, we all know that certain views/angles of anything in sport can be misleading, so NASCAR will likely want to resort to the data before determining their course of action.

NASCAR’s justification for the Elliott suspension was the fact that they looked at the data and determined that he was indeed retaliating against Hamlin — and in a way that everyone had agreed is not acceptable, especially after the Wallace suspension.

Given the fact that NASCAR suspended Elliott to be consistent with their suspension of Wallace, it’s safe to say that we will probably see other drivers immediately claim “retaliation” when they get wrecked, even if it wasn’t intentional.

Will Cindric compete in this Sunday afternoon’s Toyota/Save Mart 350? The race is set to be broadcast live on Fox from Sonoma Raceway beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don’t miss it!