Kaulig Racing president Chris Rice says the retaliatory right rear hook that Austin Cindric pulled on Ty Dillon resulted in six figures of damage to the No. 10 car.
Rice had an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Thursday and that was his response to the notion that Cindric wasn’t suspended by NASCAR, in part, because it was a lower speed road course and that Dillon drove away with minimal damage.
This wasn’t Rice lobbying publicly for a worse penalty but he did want to set the record straight on how much damage there was as a result of a high impact collision with the wall as a result.
“Front clip, upright on the right front nose, bumper, hood, right front fender, five to eight positions in the race, whatever points that is,” Rice said about the costs associated with the retaliatory shot from the Team Penske driver. “I mean, I could keep going deeper and deeper when you look it. If you go back and watch it, he did hit the wall on the straightaway with the right front.
“He goes down into Turn 1 and the right front wouldn’t turn. So they went a lap down fixing it. It took two whole stages to get that lap back and get back through the field. Its going to be six figures for sure by time we fix it and now it’s out of service and things like that. And I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened any other time, but for that wreck, that’s what it cost.”
Rice said he had a conversation with NASCAR vice president of competition Elton Sawyer on Wednesday and appreciated the time and their relationship.
There was some speculation that NASCAR could opt to suspend Cindric as right rear hooks are something the Sanctioning Body has less tolerance for right now
Instead, Cindric was fined $50,000 and docked 50 driver championship points with NASCAR suggested the speeds on a road course and that Dillon was able to drive away were all factors in it not resulting in a suspension.
“At the end of the day, NASCAR did what they thought they needed to do,” Rice said. “And I think it was in line with what they did with Hocevar under caution (at Nashville.)
“It was still a big number for Kaulig Racing, money wise … I read yesterday that they said something like it didn’t hurt the car but that was a big number.”
Rice said he appreciates Sawyer and that at the end of the day,’it’s not right,’ and that it’s not tolerated at Kaulig Racing either.
“I’ll tell you from a race team side, if my driver does something that I feel like that is, I don’t wanna say unlawful, but you know, shouldn’t happen in NASCAR because we are the biggest sport in America, we are professionals, you know, we take it up with our driver ourself,” Rice said. “And I told Ty Dillon that, I’ve had that conversation with AJ [Allmendinger] that we don’t do that. I know you get frustrated and I understand, you know, and I’ve looked at all the data, I’ve looked at everything. I got all the information.
“Had a really good conversation with [NASCAR’s] Elton [Sawyer] yesterday, and I appreciate Elton Sawyer a lot, a lot more than people know. I appreciate him having conversations with me. I just, man, it’s when you look at things like that, that’s just tough to talk about, right? Like, because no matter what I say or what I do, it’s not right. But I can tell you that we don’t condone it at Kaulig Racing. I don’t want our drivers to do something like that.”
