It’s hot, and there’s an awful lot of racing left to do today. The car is good, but not perfect, and keeping up with the leaders is tough. The car is sliding a little and needs grip, but pit stops are still laps away. It’s too early to get frustrated, but that doesn’t make it go away.
And then there’s that guy.
It’s too early to be that aggressive, and frankly, he’s not talented enough to be that aggressive anyway. Yet here he is, taking up every inch of pavement and then some. He’s not fast enough to pass clean, so he does it however he can, and now the wheels are out of the groove. Now they’re in the grass, and what a jerk that guy is. Racing like that this early, even racing like that at all because that’s not how he’s been raced.
There’s that bumper, that vulnerability. Take advantage of it, and at the very least he knows what he did was over the line. At worst, he’s in the wall. Heck, maybe he belongs in the wall because he races everybody like he owns the place, the punk.
He needs to learn a lesson. Tit for tat.
And all that happens in a split second.
Austin Cindric had every right to be angry at Ty Dillon at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday (Mar. 2.). Dillon overdrove the last corner and ran Cindric clear off the track. Cindric has good car control and he quickly righted the ship, but Dillon’s right rear corner was an easy target as Cindric reentered the track, and one shove with Cindric’s front bumper was plenty to send Dillon into the outside wall in front of the frontstretch grandstand.
Dillon wasn’t hurt and wasn’t even knocked out of the race. He finished on the lead lap in 28th, probably about where he’d have wound up anyway given his 27th-place average at COTA.
So, no harm no foul, right?
Not quite.
Right hooking another car is pretty egregious. There’s one, and only one, intent: to turn that car into the wall. Not only that, but the hook often produces a nasty angle of impact for the driver on the receiving end.
NASCAR started taking intentionally wrecking another car seriously a couple of years ago. A couple of drivers, including Bubba Wallace and Chase Elliott, drew suspensions for right hooking another driver in retaliation.
NASCAR lightened up a little in 2024 by imposing hefty fines and point penalties on drivers who series officials felt crossed a line. Though those incidents weren’t right hooks.
Cindric’s move was one, and while it barely impacted Dillon’s day, Cindric should be spending the next race weekend at home. NASCAR drew this line in the sand, and it was the right place and time to draw it. To rub it out now would be a mistake.
The right hook is over the top because it’s dangerous. At a high-speed oval, the wrong angle of impact could end a career. The ugly truth is that it could do worse.
NASCAR can’t make exceptions for different tracks. Hooking a competitor into the wall is never acceptable.
NASCAR’s penalties last year suggest that while it’s always wrong, not all intentional wrecking is equal, and that’s OK. There is a difference, albeit a small one, between forcing a driver up the track and into the wall with the right side of the car and causing him to hit it head on.
NASCAR should penalize intentional wrecking, but perhaps saving the biggest penalty for the most dangerous move isn’t as inconsistent as it looks at first glance. As long as the same move draws the same penalty every time and intentional wrecking always draws one, it’s hard to call it inconsistent.
It’s no different than other violations. NASCAR has different penalty levels for a reason. A slightly-altered fender isn’t the same as a cheated-up engine. As long as NASCAR defines what draws a certain penalty level, it’s fine.
The two moves a driver can make that deserve an involuntary vacation are the right hook and an intentional hit on pit road, either during or after the race. Crews and fans in the pits don’t have a roll cage around them. A bystander getting hit could be tragic.
Here’s a move that should have drawn a suspension: Ty Gibbs took out his frustration with Dillon entering pit road during a Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway in 2022, knocking Dillon sideways into pit boxes where crews were preparing to service cars.
Gibbs was fined for the incident (he was ineligible for Cup Series points at the time so couldn’t lose points) but should have sat out the entire following weekend, including the NASCAR Xfinity Series race where he was racing for a title.
Crashing another driver under caution, while not at speed, is borderline. Drivers aren’t expecting a crash and are often talking to their crews, adjusting their belts or having a hand out the window to increase airflow.
While not every instance of retaliation is equal, intentionally wrecking another driver is never acceptable. Danger aside (and danger can’t be put aside in racing), the beef is with the other driver, not the crewmen who worked on the car.
It’s fine for NASCAR to have different penalty levels for retaliatory contact as long as there’s transparency and consistency within that structure. To that end, Cindric should be sitting out this weekend at Phoenix Raceway. That penalty has been established for a right hook crash, and though this one was minor, the intent is the same.
Inconsistency in enforcing its rules is a credibility problem for NASCAR, but in the case of intentional wrecking, it’s also a safety issue. NASCAR can’t afford to waffle on safety, and while drivers will always toe the line, it’s up to the sanctioning body to crack down if they cross it.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.