Kevin Harvick eviscerates NASCAR over Austin Cindric punishment: 'I don't give sh*t what it is'

Austin Cindric received a 50-point, $50,000 penalty for right-rear hooking Ty Dillon during the Echopark Automotive Grand Prix at COTA. Kevin Harvick didn’t agree with NASCAR’s punishment, believing the Team Penske wheelman should’ve been hit with a suspension.

Evidently, Harvick thinks the rule is as black and white as it gets, and drivers like Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace have been suspended for the decision in the past. During the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour, the former champion elaborated on why it’s a bad look on NASCAR’s part to allow Cindric to skate by.

“Austin Cindric not being suspended was an absolute joke,” Harvick proclaimed. “… NASCAR puts themselves in position because they try to justify the right-rear hook right here. There’s no justifying that. You come across it straight away, you hook the guy. We’ve talked about this in driver council meetings. We’ve talked about this with people for the last several years. The drivers want those black and white calls.

“It’s just like your freaking kids. If you have consistent firm ruling, it allows you to parent better. Right now, we have bad parents. Officiating, what’s going on — that’s what I’m comparing it to. I’m not calling them bad parents. When you don’t parent with that iron fist and try to make some accountability and consistency for your kids, it becomes difficult to continuously do the things that you need to do. But the Austin Cindric thing, and the restarts and all these things that we’re just all over the place with, that’s not how it needs to be. Austin Cindric should have been suspended.”

As you can tell, Harvick got pretty worked up about Cindric being allowed to continue racing without a suspension. Moving forward, the FOX Sports analyst would like to see NASCAR dish out punishment for hooking fellow drivers during the race. It’s easy enough to see that Harvick believes it needs to be called.

“In my opinion, those calls need to be done during the race. When you see it’s that blatant, park them. Put them in the garage,” Harvick added. “You hooked them in the right-rear, you’re done for the day. We’ll decide on Wednesday if you — if you need more of a penalty. But you need to park them right there. Park them right freaking there and be done with it. We’ve got to have an iron fist. … There’s nobody ruling the simple, hard decisions. … It has been as sloppy as I’ve ever seen the officiating.”

“… It’s a right hook, left hook, road course, short track, intermediate — I don’t give a shit what it is. … It’s that simple, and that’s how that rule needs to be. They’re not officiating it that way. They just made themselves look like fools because they didn’t call something that is so simple to call because they justify it through the PR guy going 35 miles an hour to road course. That’s garbage.”

All told, Kevin Harvick certainly wasn’t the only one disappointed in NASCAR’s ruling. Kyle Busch and Ty Dillon were both surprised Austin Cindric avoided a suspension. Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see how the move is officiated, after the immense backlash NASCAR has received for the choice they made.