NASCAR chief addresses CONTROVERSIAL penalty call

NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde has explained why officials decided not to suspend a star driver for last weekend's race in Phoenix.

The decision was made after this month's race at the Circuit of the Americas, the first road course of the 2025 Cup Series season, which actually played a role in the decision-making.

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Austin Cindric was fined $50,000 and docked 50 points for wrecking Ty Dillon by hitting him in the right rear section of his car, but avoided a suspension for a few reasons.

Cindric wrecked Dillon in retaliation against what he saw as over the line driving, and dropped from 11th to 35th in the standings thanks to the 50-point deduction.

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Why wasn't Austin Cindric suspended for wrecking Ty Dillon?

Speaking on the Hauler Talk podcast, Forde explained that the incident was treated more leniently than similar incidents involving Bubba Wallace and Chase Elliott thanks to the lower-speed nature of the track.

He said: “In this case, we did feel that it was significantly different than the previous two. And the reasons are it is at a road course with lower speeds to begin with, and the results didn’t even draw a caution flag.

"So those were really the reasons why we chose to err on the side of letting (Cindric) race this weekend in Phoenix with a fine and a significant driver points penalty.

"When I hit social media after this penalty is announced, my guess is that there is going to be several people who feel this is the wrong call. And it may not be the popular call, but when we look at penalties, we do not really care how popular we are. We try to do the right thing here.”

He added: “His frustration was at a boiling point. Why he did it doesn’t make it right and didn’t come into our thought process of where we should land here. It was strictly because of the speeds and the venue. We didn’t view this the same as Bubba Wallace and Chase Elliott incidents at mile-and-a-half tracks."

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