Watch Austin Cindric Intentionally Wreck Chevy Driver Ty Dillon: Video

Barely five laps into the Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) on March 2^nd, 2025, drivers were already trading paint, because why wait until the final laps to start the drama? Ford driver Austin Cindric and Chevy’s Ty Dillon got into a tussle on Lap 4 at COTA on Sunday – an incident that NASCAR is investigating with a potential suspension to be handed out.

Dillon, piloting the No. 10 Chevy, decided to play a little rough through Turn 20 at Circuit of the Americas, squeezing Cindric’s No. 2 Ford Mustang Dark Horse a bit too wide for his liking as they raced for position deep in the field.

Austin Cindric drifted high, losing valuable time as he chased his race car over the turtles and wrestled it back into line, but not before he got a shot in at the driver he felt had wronged him. He hooked Dillon in the right rear quarter panel the second he had a chance, causing the No. 10 Chevy to spin in front of traffic before slamming the outside wall and collecting another driver.

The No. 10 Chevy was wounded but not immobilized, and neither was Cindric’s No. 2 Mustang. Both drivers finished the race without much to show for it – Austin Cindric is credited with 25^th and Dillon 28^th.

NASCAR guidelines forbid drivers from intentionally crashing competitors with the threat of suspension to the offending party. At the time of this writing, officials have not announced penalties to Cindric, but indicated that it’s not off the table.

“Yeah, unfortunately that happened early on in the race, so there was not a caution at that point for it,”  Brad Moran, Managing Director of the NASCAR Cup Series, said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “But, we are going to go back, and that’s on our list today, so we’ll have a look at that and see if there was something there that we do not like, and if there is we’ll have to deal with it.”