Austin Cindric: NASCAR issues L1 penalty before practice; Crew chief ejected

More issues ahead of practice at Kentucky Speedway

It’s not often teams run into major issues with officials ahead of practice. Today, we’ve seen two of these special cases.

First, ahead of NASCAR Truck Series practice this morning, a truck was confiscated by the sanction. Stewart Friesen’s firewall drew an eye from officials.

No penalties have been handed out in that incident with the Halmar Racing truck. However, they are likely to be issued in the middle of the week.

Related: NASCAR confiscates the truck of Stewart Friesen ahead of practice

Austin Cindric: Inspection issues at Kentucky Speedway

Fast forward a few hours, there has been a separate issue in the NASCAR Xfinity Series garage area. The #22 car of Austin Cindric was caught with an illegal modification to the bodywork ahead of the opening round of practice at 3:05pm.

In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, teams are provided with flange fit body work. That narrows the window for body modifications as each manufacture has near identical bodies between all teams.

Multiple security features are molded into the carbon bodywork to prevent tampering. Thus, when body violations surface, it draws a big penalty.

Austin Cindric: Penalty

The team has been handed an L1 penalty and fined $10,000. Brian Wilson, the crew chief of the #22 Team Penske has been ejected from the speedway.

In addition, the drivers has lost 10 points in the standings. That’s paired with a dock of 10 owner points for Roger Penske.

This is also not typical. Usually, we’ll see car chiefs or engineers ejected when it comes to inspection issues. Though, the ruebook allows NASCAR to eject a crew member of their choosing.

The team went to work on their machine following the issues. The car was repaired to spec without the need to unload a backup car.

Cindic made it to the track in the opening round of practice. He finished the session 5th on the time sheets.

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Austin Cindric | Team Penske | Kentucky Speedway | NASCAR

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