Sunday's Advent Health 400 at Kansas Speedway saw a number of issues on pit road for several top teams. One such incident saw Austin Cindric's No. 2 Team Penske Ford lose a tire on the track. That made for a rough day for the former Daytona 500 champion, but the repercussions didn't stop there. On Tuesday, May 9, NASCAR officially suspended two Team Penske pit crew members for two Cup races for their roles in the faulty pit stop.
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Fox's broadcast team had plenty to say when the incident went down, with Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch offering some interesting commentary on the mishap.
"Broke a wheel. That's a little different there," Busch said. "Heh heh. Or he just hit it that hard."
Ultimately, Busch's initial assessment wasn't exactly the case, as the video clearly shows. Cindric's pit crew had clearly screwed up big time during the previous pit stop. With just one lug nut, the 24-year-old driver's car clearly wasn't race ready. Mistakes of this sort seem to be a weekly occurrence for some teams more than others.
Clint Bowyer hit it right on the head with his thoughts of what took place, as the tire clearly hadn't been secure. That's a big no-no in NASCAR. The tire coming off of Cindric's car clearly violates Safety Sections 8.8.10.4 A & C of the NASCAR rule book.
That costly mistake on pit road will be felt for the next couple of weeks, as the No. 2 team will be without two of its crew members, Keiston France and Patrick Gray.
Cindric couldn't quite recover from the tire snafu. He ended up several laps down and ended the day in 31st, which was his fourth-straight finish of 26th or worse. With only two top 10s to show this season, Cindric can't afford any more errors by his team. Perhaps this week's Goodyear 400 at Darlington will serve the Team Penske driver better.
