Kaulig Racing Reveals Eye-Watering Cost Of Ty Dillon Austin Cindric Wreck

Kaulig Racing president Chris Rice has spoken out following Austin Cindric’s $50,000 fine and 50 point penalty for his wreck with Kaulig driver Ty Dillon.

After Cindric and Dillon made contact during the race at the iconic Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, the former retaliated and right rear-hooked Dillon causing him to spin, collide with Zane Smith, and hit the wall.

Although drivers often face suspensions for such actions, some argue that because Dillon’s car “wasn’t severely damaged,” it didn’t warrant that. However, Rice has now spoken out stating that the cost of repairs for Dillon’s No. 10 Chevrolet ZL1 were into the six figures.

Meanwhile, NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde has explained why Cindric was not penalized further, during an appearance on the Hauler Talk podcast:

“The reason we landed on the points and fine is we take every situation and every violation as its own unique incident, and I know fans probably don’t love hearing that, but it’s said because it’s true.

“Sure, we do look at past instances to help educate ourselves on how we should handle each subsequent one, but each incident is very different.

“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.”

Forde confirmed that Cindric’s other recent crashes were discussed prior to issuing the penalties, however, they didn’t influence the decision.

“His frustration was at a boiling point,” Forde said. “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.

“So that’s really what the thinking was. But it was helpful to tell the story of what led into this whether that was brought up as food for thought or ‘Hey, if you’re wondering why someone who seems like a pretty level-headed dude in Austin Cindric would do something like that, this is probably why.'”

The penalty sees Cindric move from 11th to 35th in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.