Tag: Austin Cindric

Restarts still a hot topic at Martinsville

Michael McDowell believes the wrong conversation has taken place this week. “What I can’t understand is why y’all aren’t talking about [Kyle] Larson and [Joey] Logano,” McDowell said about the restart discussion that continues from Richmond Raceway. …

Michael McDowell believes the wrong conversation has taken place this week.

“What I can’t understand is why y’all aren’t talking about [Kyle] Larson and [Joey] Logano,” McDowell said about the restart discussion that continues from Richmond Raceway. “They should have been penalized for laying back. Clear as day. They were both a car length back; both of them should have been penalized. There’s no question about that one.”

The conversation has focused mainly on Denny Hamlin jumping the overtime restart at Richmond – Hamlin was the control car and admitted that he rolled before getting to the line that designates the start of the restart zone because he didn’t want to lose his advantage seeing others lagging back.

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NASCAR didn’t make a call to penalize Hamlin, saying it was ‘awful close’ after initially reviewing the restart. NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer admitted that Hamlin had gone early, and further said it’s a call that would have been looked at differently had it occurred earlier in the race.

Earlier this week, Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Josh Berry and Ryan Preece spoke adamantly about the leader needing to keep their advantage on restarts. Neither driver felt Hamlin necessarily did anything wrong.

On Saturday at Martinsville Speedway, the conversation continued with more Cup Series drivers. McDowell, like Berry and Preece, seemed unfazed by what happened.

“Because the leader should have the advantage,” the Front Row Motorsports driver said.

McDowell pointed to other forms of motorsports, where the leader can restart wherever they want. He pointed to how restarts work in the NTT IndyCar series and Formula 1. However, in NASCAR, McDowell said it’s about the entertainment of the field being two and three-wide and putting on a show at the end of the race.

“I listened a little bit to different podcasts and Race Hub, and social media, and I think for the fans it’s probably a bit confusing because there is a hard line (on the racetrack),” McDowell said. “For me, it wasn’t. I think if you’re the leader, you should have the advantage under every circumstance. There should never be a situation where the leader doesn’t have the advantage on a restart. Do we need to change the line, the box, the rules, all these things? I don’t know. I just don’t want to take away the leader’s opportunity to win the race by putting so many parameters around everything.

“I’m a fan of the leader just goes whenever he wants to go and there not be any box. Whether that’s the middle of the back straightaway or the front straightaway.”

Two-time Cup series champion Kyle Busch acknowledged if Hamlin’s jump had been earlier in the race, it likely would have been reviewed and called. But Busch said NASCAR is prone to let things go at the end of a race.

“We look at bump and runs, dump and runs,” Busch said. “A guy blatantly takes out another guy and gets to score the win because they aren’t going to strip that for rough driving or something else. I feel like that’s their mentality, a little bit of not wanting to be involved in a finish that strips a win.”

NASCAR implemented a restart zone in 2009, which was the same year double-file restarts were introduced. Previously, the race leader lined up on the outside of the front row with lapped cars to their inside. It was at the leader’s discretion to restart the race between Turn 4 and the start/finish line.

The restart zone is clearly defined on each racetrack. There are also orange neon markings on the top of the outside wall to help the driver’s sightlines and usually, in blue, ‘GEICO Restart Zone’ is painted on the wall.

“I’m not surprised by the call,” Ross Chastain said. “I’m not surprised by the move, by the cars involved at the front of the field. Not saying I’m going to do the same thing because if everyone just goes early, then there is no advantage. So, the advantage is doing what your competitors beside you and behind you don’t expect. I don’t expect all restarts to fire in Turn 3 this weekend by any means. But there are two lines for a reason and we all know that.

“The scary part is when do the reactionary calls change. When is that a penalty at the end of the race or lap 10 or 30 or 300? Being that first guy who gets called for going the same distance early would be tough to swallow.”

A driver pushing their luck in the restart zone is not new, and something Kyle Larson said everyone does, especially at the end of a race. Hamlin was not the first driver Larson had seen go before the restart zone.

“It’s always been a game,” he said. “I don’t really know how I necessarily view it. I can see all sides of it. There are lines on the racetrack, so this could be your line that you have to go by. But also, as the leader, you need to have full control of the lead, and the zones are so small that the leader, most times or at least half of the time, I feel like, is at a disadvantage because that zone is so small and easy to predict and time when they go.”

Larson would like to see NASCAR go back to a larger restart zone. An expanded restart zone (by 50 percent) was something NASCAR did briefly implement at the beginning of last season, which gave the leader more time to decide when to hit the gas. It made restarts less predictable.

“I think that helps the leader, and you see less games outside the zone,” Larson continued. “I think you get more strategy going within the zone, which is fair. But Fontana, everybody behind [Joey] Logano, tried predicting when he was going to go, and he just waited until the end of the zone, which was legal. And they all crashed and then NASCAR thought it was a zone length issue when it really was just a competitor issue.

“I would just like to see the zone a lot bigger; even bigger than it used to be or was early last year because then I think you get those – I hate to call it games – strategical moves within the zone. I think you’d see less jumping the start if the zone was longer.”

The debate will likely continue, as will questions from drivers on what’s legal and not. But for Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, there seems to be a consensus that NASCAR will be closely watching restarts, and no driver is likely to try to get away with something like Hamlin did, as Austin Cindric said, “all I know is, you’d be really dumb to try and jump it this week.”

Cindric blames LaJoie for last lap Daytona 500 crash

Austin Cindric blamed Corey LaJoie for causing the final wreck in the Daytona 500 that led to the race ending under caution. Cindric and Ross Chastain bounced off each other coming to the trioval and the white flag in Monday night’s race. Initially, …

Austin Cindric blamed Corey LaJoie for causing the final wreck in the Daytona 500 that led to the race ending under caution.

Cindric and Ross Chastain bounced off each other coming to the trioval and the white flag in Monday night’s race. Initially, Chastain took the blame for being too aggressive, but outside the infield care center, Cindric explained that his Team Penske Ford Mustang had been hit by LaJoie and sent up the track as Chastain was coming down trying to pass leader William Byron.

“Me getting wrecked. He didn’t see that,” Cindric said of what he told Chastain. “It’s just a really unfortunate end. We had a shot to win the Daytona 500. We were really in great position with the outside lane breaking up and kind of one-on-one with the 24 (Byron) with the whole pack behind, so you can’t really ask for anything else other than that out of myself and the team.

“It just sucks a little bit.”

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Byron led the field off Turn 4 with Cindric on the bottom and Chastain to his outside. LaJoie was on the bottom drafting with Cindric. When Byron moved to cover Chastain’s run from the outside lane, the Trackhouse Racing driver pulled to the left to get to his inside right as LaJoie tried to get to the inside of Cindric, was blocked, and then hit the rear bumper of Cindric to send him sideways into Chastain.

Cindric and Chastain spun through the grass before coming back up onto the racetrack. Cindric was clipped by oncoming traffic.

“Corey finished fourth, so congrats,” Cindric said. “He tried to fit a car where there wasn’t a car and just continued to push through my left rear until I wrecked. I understand trying to shuck me out or put up an opportunity because I was in probably the best spot possible coming to the white, but I’m in the care center and I don’t even know where I finished. So it really sucks, but that’s racing.”

Byron won the race and Cindric finished 22nd with Chastain 21st.

On the run coming to the white flag, LaJoie had help from AJ Allmendinger. LaJoie thanked Allmendinger for sticking with him when they returned to pit road.

“When I went to fill the bottom, the 2 (Cindric) left an entire lane open, and then he threw a lazy block and wrecked a couple cars and himself,” LaJoie said of the incident. “You’ll have that.”

Austin Cindric’s 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season in review

Austin Cindric had a down year with Team Penske in the NASCAR Cup Series. Here, you can check out Cindric’s 2023 season in review!

[autotag]Austin Cindric[/autotag] had an incredible rookie season with Team Penske after winning the 2023 Daytona 500, but his second campaign was pretty rough. Cindric finished the year with one top-5 finish and five top-10 finishes, which are significantly down compared to last season. The driver of the No. 2 car missed the playoffs and finished 24th in the point standings.

It was an incredibly disappointing season for Cindric, who dropped 12 spots in the point standings and had an average finishing position drop of over five places. Needless to say, not much went right. Cindric closed out the campaign with 33 laps led (26th-best) and a 21.6 average finishing position (28th-best); however, what went wrong for him?

The Team Penske driver only had five top-25 finishes over the last 11 races and 14 top-20 finishes over the course of the entire season. For the standards set at Team Penske, that is very, very poor. In fact, this is the worst full-time season by any driver for the NASCAR team since Brad Keselowski in 2010. Cindric had a massive sophomore slump.

If Cindric wants to show that he can be an annual winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, it will likely start next season. Cindric will be starting in his 100th Cup Series race in 2024, which is the mark that many look at for developing drivers. If the struggles seen in 2023 reappear, serious questions about his future will arise.

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Cindric staying positive into win-or-bust Daytona weekend

It might be a little too late, but Austin Cindric believes the No. 2 team has “gotten our act together” over the last month of NASCAR Cup Series competition. It’s been a frustrating year for Cindric and his group, one that has required going back to …

It might be a little too late, but Austin Cindric believes the No. 2 team has “gotten our act together” over the last month of NASCAR Cup Series competition.

It’s been a frustrating year for Cindric and his group, one that has required going back to the basics and focusing on fundamentals. Things finally hit their climax recently of not being able to do their jobs all at the same time.

But the good news is that the NASCAR championship format can be forgiving, as Cindric could win his way into the postseason Saturday night in Daytona. And he can only qualify for the postseason via a victory as he is 22nd in the point standings.

“There are certainly points of the year where I think I work with enough talented people that if someone has done something wrong or if I’ve done something wrong … we’re pretty quick to stick our hands up and say, ‘Hey that was on me today,’” Cindric said. “So, I don’t think any of the tough conversations have been tough to have. Maybe that’s the best way to put it because I think the expectations for myself and my team and of our team are high and justifiably so.

“So from that standpoint, we try and get the best, and sometimes when you’re not able to get much of anything out of a race weekend, like I said before, you got to go back to the basics. I think in the last month, we’ve done a very good job at execution, something that has come at a premium, I would say, for the first half of the season for us. Unfortunately, we’re getting to that point right before the cutoff of the regular season.”

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Cindric has three top-16 finishes in the last three races. A sixth-place finish on the streets of Chicago tied Cindric’s best result of the season, which was also at Las Vegas and Circuit of The Americas. In 13 of 25 races, Cindric has finished outside the top 20.

The 2023 season has felt more like a rookie season and full of learning for Cindric than his 2022 rookie season did.

“It’s hard to understand or attribute it to what or why — I can’t just sit here and tell you one thing, but, yes, this year feels different because I’ve run a lot worse than last year,” Cindric said. “There’s a lot more days of looking in the mirror and trying to figure out how to change or refine my process to absolutely maximize every race event, so that’s been a constant battle. I’m a pretty self-motivated person, internally motivated person and when things aren’t going right, I’m usually the first person I look at, and that’s what my team expects out of me.

“At the same time, how do things that I do affect the people around me and all of those things, whether it’s leadership qualities or just trying to figure out mechanically how to make the car go fast. Whether it’s with pieces and parts on the car or how I’m driving the car; so there’s been a lot of those difficult Sunday nights because it’s definitely been different not running well.”

Daytona launched Cindric straight into the playoffs last year in the most dramatic of ways. Rusty Jarrett/Motorsport Images

Cindric also didn’t have to worry about fighting for a playoff spot last season because he won the season-opening Daytona 500. In fact, Cindric has never experienced being on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs because in every NASCAR national series he’s competed in full-time, he’s been a part of them.

“I don’t know what that’s like, standing around with your hands in your pockets,” Cindric joked.

Cindric finished third in the Craftsman Truck Series playoffs in his lone season in the series (2017). He finished no worse than eighth in the Xfinity Series playoffs in four consecutive seasons, including winning the 2020 championship.

It was a 12th-place finish in points for Cindric in the Cup Series last season.

“It’ll be different territory next week if I’m not in the playoffs,” Cindric said. “There are times in my career where I’ve had to fight to get into the playoffs; that’s the point of the playoff format. So I have been there before and even trying to make it round to round in the playoffs is a similar situation.

“My playoff experience probably, I would say mentally, would help someone in this situation because it is the same, similar win and you’re in. You have to execute on one day even in the Championship 4 situation, so I think just being able to have experience racing under pressure definitely doesn’t hurt, and you mix that with speedway racing, and it’s going to be a hell of a weekend.”

Lack of Cup stage breaks bringing unexpected physical challenges

Brad Keselowski went the entire race on the Indianapolis road course without touching his water bottle. Austin Cindric had to physically pull his arm back straight after climbing out of the car. Ross Chastain saw some of his fellow competitors in …

Brad Keselowski went the entire race on the Indianapolis road course without touching his water bottle. Austin Cindric had to physically pull his arm back straight after climbing out of the car. Ross Chastain saw some of his fellow competitors in much worse shape than he was on pit road after the checker.

NASCAR eliminated stage breaks during road course races this season in hopes of putting strategy back into the equation. It was a request of many within the industry who said road courses had become too predictable.

There is also the driver variable — without stage breaks, drivers lost two opportunities to catch their breath and reset. It’s the first time in seven years they’ve competed without breaks.

“Oh yeah, it’s a lot more challenging when you don’t have a break,” Keselowski said. “Your heart rate never gets the chance to drop. I went the whole race last weekend without drinking a sip of water because [I] couldn’t. There was no time to do it. It’s really easy to get dehydrated, and there’s fatigue that’s associated with that [which made it a] really grueling race. I expect something very similar [at Watkins Glen Sunday], and we’ll have to react and adapt accordingly.”

Indianapolis was the fourth road course race of six on the Cup Series schedule. There was only one natural caution during the race, which came on lap two. The race went 77 green flag laps until the end.

“Indy was definitely a different physical challenge, especially with how hot it was outside,” Cindric said. “For me, I get stuck inside the car. That’s my biggest physical challenge – I’m a big guy in a little car. My [left] arm never left the same position for how long that race was, so I had to get out of the car and pull my arm straight.

“Other than that, it’s what you train for, it’s what you’re supposed to be prepared for. I think we’ve had four very different road courses as far as stage breaks versus no stage breaks or whatever else. I think you’ll see a different result for that play at each track that we go to.”

A green flag run of 77 straight laps reaffirmed to Chastain the need to keep in a grind and keep pushing to be better physically and mentally. He also used the opportunity to have a race within a race last weekend.

“We didn’t have the speed to go run with the front group, but I also was better than a lot and I had 6s in front with a few laps to go and 6s behind,” he said. “I was just in my own little area, and it was a personal decision to try to catch that next group. I felt there was more speed in the car, and if I messed up, spun out, well, I’d probably only lose one or two spots and what the heck, let’s go for it. I caught up to them but wasn’t able to pass them.

“I felt good in the car, and getting out on pit road [I saw] that was not the case for everybody. There were some guys that were worn out. Proud of our processes that are making me stronger. I’m not the biggest guy, but I’m race fit, and I think there’s a lot to be said for that.”

Watkins Glen (Sunday, 3pm ET, USA) is the fifth of six road course races on the Cup Series schedule. Indianapolis and Watkins Glen are the only back-to-back ones on the schedule.

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Joey Logano still doesn’t have an opinion on having stage breaks versus not. As far as the physical toll on the driver, the two-time series champion hasn’t noticed a difference. What he specifically doesn’t like is when a caution comes out near the end of the stage, which extends the time under yellow.

“I’m kind of a fan of just a re-rack and let them go again, and you know what, if it puts the opportunity to run strategy and stay out and win a race versus guys flipping the stages, so be it,” Logano said. “That’s part of the race. Everyone says how it’s not authentic, it’s a manufactured caution. Well, everyone knows it’s going to be there. It’s still a race. We all know it’s going to be there, we can create a strategy around it.

“I didn’t understand why we did it in the first place; still don’t understand it, but it’s OK either way. I just drive the car.”

Ryan Blaney also doesn’t mind either way. A race with a stage break brings out the caution when the stage concludes with the top 10 drivers crossing the start/finish line, but without, it’s just a designated stage end lap with the field continuing to compete.

“I think a lot of people that watched the races didn’t like the stage breaks and then, when we did away with them, they didn’t like that it went green the whole time,” Blaney said. “It’s one of those things [where] you can’t please everyone. That was a tough race last week, honestly. It was hot running the whole race. That’s a tough racetrack, so [I] kind of bore down through it.

“You can have that, especially at that place where there’s a lot of runoffs and you can kind of spin and get going again. Here (at Watkins Glen), it’s a little bit tougher, I think, of having no cautions because there’s not as much run off. … I don’t really mind either way, but that was a long one last week.”

Sonoma is the race that stands out for Kyle Busch — where he felt the lack of cautions the most. On that day, June 11, there were two natural cautions on laps 51 and 93.

“Sonoma was a little long feeling but not too terrible,” Busch said. “Last weekend I only really ran half the race — my second half of the race was way off pace, so throw me out on that one. I heard Austin (Dillon) got a little bit smoked last week, though, so not sure if his [cool suit] didn’t work or what, but I think it’s fine. It’s OK.

“It lends itself to the strategy game. It lends itself to not being so hokey-pokey with guys running over each other, so I feel like there’s going to be pluses and minuses to it. But that’s the same to be said about oval racing as well…”

Circuit of The Americas on March 26 had eight natural cautions. The final four all came within the final 12 laps.

The inaugural Chicago street course on July 2 featured wet weather and single-file restarts. There were nine natural cautions.

“It’s just more physically demanding, for sure, and wrapping your head around it mentally took an adjustment,” Kyle Larson said. “I remember at COTA, I kind of forgot that we don’t have a caution and I’m racing really hard, and you’re getting your heart rate up and pushing to the end of that stage where typically you can relax. As soon as I crossed the start-finish line, I was like, ‘Oh [expletive] we still have to keep going?’ That was mentally tough trying to manage your race and your body. Indy was the same thing, but I was more ready to keep going. It was hot, but I enjoyed it. It’s more of a pure race.

“I know it’s probably super boring on TV with no cautions, but I think the strategy and the race playing out how it should is what racing is all about, especially road course racing. With the old way of how it was, it wasn’t ever fair. I felt like teams that ran around 20th or 30th could stay out and get stage points and take them from teams who were really fast. Now if your car is fast, you stay up front, you get the points you deserve and get a good finish.”

No penalty for Cindric after contact with Dillon at WWTR

Austin Cindric will not be penalized for his contact with Austin Dillon in Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway after NASCAR determined it was a racing incident. Cindric and Dillon made contact going into Turn 1 with 22 laps to go. Cindric …

Austin Cindric will not be penalized for his contact with Austin Dillon in Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway after NASCAR determined it was a racing incident.

Cindric and Dillon made contact going into Turn 1 with 22 laps to go. Cindric was in the middle of a three-wide battle with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on his outside and Dillon on the inside. The contact was in the right rear as Cindric and Dillon came together, turning Dillon into the right and into the path of Stenhouse.

Frustrated by the end of his day, Dillon told the media outside the infield care center that he believed the incident was intentional on Cindric’s part. The Richard Childress Racing driver compared it to Chase Elliott wrecking Denny Hamlin the week before at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which earned Elliott a one-race suspension.

“He’d better be suspended next week,” Dillon said of Cindric.

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Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the series reviewed the incident and will take no action. NASCAR used the same SMT data in its investigation as with the Elliott and Hamlin incident. The data was still available even though there was an off-site connectivity failure during the race that took the system down and also briefly took Fox Sports (broadcast) and Motor Racing Network (radio) off the air.

“We didn’t have it live, we didn’t have SMT data live, but it was still being recorded in the background, and it was stored,” said Sawyer. “So now the race teams have it, and we have it as well. Looking back at that incident, we didn’t see anything and haven’t seen anything that really would rise to a level that would be a suspension or a penalty. It looked like hard racing, one car coming up a little bit, another car going down.”

Cindric finished 13th in St. Louis and Dillon finished 31st.

Elliott returns from his suspension this weekend at Sonoma Raceway. The former series champion is the second driver NASCAR has suspended in recent months for an intentional right hook after Bubba Wallace’s incident with Kyle Larson in Las Vegas late last season set the precedent.

“As we said last week, we take these incidents very serious when we see cars that are turned head-on into another car or turned head-on into the wall,” Sawyer said. “(We) spent a lot of time looking at that yesterday, looking at all the data, looking at TV footage, and just deemed this one as really hard racing.

“We’re going to have conversation with the two Austins to make sure we’re all in a good place as we move forward to Sonoma. But again, looking at it and taking all the data and resources, we’ll move forward without a penalty on this one.”

2022 Kwik Trip 250 NASCAR odds, picks and predictions

Analyzing Sunday’s 2022 Kwik Trip 250 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., with NASCAR odds, picks and predictions.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., Sunday for the 2022 Kwik Trip 250 presented by JOCKEY Made in America. The green flag is set to drop a little after 3 p.m. ET (USA). Below we analyze the 2022 Kwik Trip 250 odds and lines, with NASCAR picks and predictions.

Sunday’s race is scheduled for 62 laps and 250 miles on the 4.048-mile road course at Road America which features elevation change and 14 turns. The Cup Series returned to the track in 2021 after a 65-year hiatus.

There aren’t a lot of recent results at this track, although it is a historic track dating back to the early days of NASCAR. There are also plenty of active drivers with experience on this Wisconsin road course from their days in the Xfinity Series.

2022 Kwik Trip 250: What you need to know

  • Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott won the 2021 race, leading 24 laps after starting in the 34th position.
  • TrackHouse Racing’s Ross Chastain won the 1st road course stop of the season, edging out A.J. Allmendinger at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, in late March.
  • At Sonoma in mid-June, Daniel Suarez came up with his 1st-ever NASCAR Cup Series victory on the road course in the Toyota/Save Mart 350.
  • Penske Racing’s Austin Cindric managed a 38th-place finish last season in one of his few starts as a part-time driver for Penske. However, in 5 Xfinity races at Road America he has a win, 36 laps led and a 12.8 Average-Finish Position (AFP), so he has plenty of good experience here.
  • Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell also has an Xfinity Series win at this track in his 3 starts on the circuit, and he was a runner-up last season in the NASCAR Cup Series.

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Kwik Trip 250 – Expert picks

Odds provided by Tipico Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports Scores and Sports Betting Odds hub for a full list. Lines last updated at 12:23 a.m. ET.

ELLIOTT (+350) is listed as the favorite, and the defending champ has been a tremendous road course driver throughout his career. This is the safest play on the board given his win last year, moving all the way up from a starting position of 34th.

CHASE BRISCOE (+750) was a respectable 6th last season. Like Elliott, the driver of the No. 14 car was forced to matriculate his way up through the field from an ugly starting spot of 35th.

In addition to a small-unit play on the outright win, take a look at BRISCOE TOP-10 FINISH (+100).

Kwik Trip 250 picks – Long shot

BELL (+2000) acquitted himself well here in the Cup Series last season with a runner-up finish. JGR’s Bell has been a little disappointment overall, but he can wash all of that bad taste away with a victory on this road course. As mentioned, this will be his 5th career start at the track, once on the Cup Series, and 3 times in the Xfinity Series with 1 win and 10 laps led.

Kwik Trip 250 prop picks

AUSTIN CINDRIC TOP-5 FINISH (+140)

The driver of the No. 2 Ford has an Xfinity win under his belt at this track. While last season’s finish was a disaster, he was able to lead 2 laps before a rear gear issue forced him out of the race.

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NASCAR rookie Austin Cindric ‘didn’t make a mistake’ on his way to a Daytona 500 victory

The 23-year-old NASCAR driver’s first career win was the Daytona 500.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — For the past three and a half months, Austin Cindric has been “haunted” by his performance in the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship race.

“Every moment of every day,” he said of how often he thinks about losing a second consecutive championship in the second-tier series by 0.030 seconds to Daniel Hemric in November.

“I’ve never been in so much pain that I wanted to vomit,” Cindric said. “Never in my life have I been in so much pain, felt like I let so many people down that I’ve wanted to just throw up on the sport.”

But in the 23-year-old rookie’s debut as a full-time Cup Series driver, he found redemption for that loss, taking the checkered flag in the biggest race of his life, Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500, for his first win at NASCAR’s highest level.

“This makes up for losing the [Xfinity] championship last year,” Cindric said.

“It’s a racer’s dream, and so many people get close to it. And I feel very grateful and very proud to be able to pull it off.”

Replacing Brad Keselowski — who became a driver-owner for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing — in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, Cindric edged out runner-up Bubba Wallace by 0.036 in the third-closest finish in Daytona 500 history.

It was Cindric’s eighth career Cup start, and the rookie became the second-youngest Daytona 500 champ after 2011 winner Trevor Bayne, then 20 years old. He led 21 laps.

He raced like, and beat, hard-charging Cup veterans in the final laps around the 2.5-mile track, elevated by his No. 2 Ford that was fast enough to finish second in his qualifying race Thursday and start fifth in “The Great American Race.”

“If you looked at Austin this week and the way he ran, he didn’t make a mistake today,” said team owner Roger Penske, who celebrated his 85th birthday Sunday and got quite the present.

“He was up second, third, almost the entire race, and then at the end to be able to pull it off, [it] shows you the quality of kid he is and also the experience that he already has as a young man.”

With multiple wrecks in the final 10 laps of the 200 go-arounds scheduled — fairly standard for the end of the Daytona 500 — NASCAR went to overtime and ended the race with a two-lap shootout.

Cindric clung to his lead from the inside lane after the final restart with teammate Ryan Blaney, Keselowski and Wallace among those chasing down the No. 2 Ford. Coming out of Turn 4 on the last lap, Blaney moved to the top of the track to attempt to pass his teammate for the win, but Cindric went with him and threw a block.

Blaney made contact with the outside wall as Wallace went to the inside, but they ran out of time to get around Cindric.

“I was able to get Austin in front and off of [Turn] 4, where we were good enough to make a move,” Blaney said. “I got blocked and I ended up getting fenced. I’m happy for Roger Penske, winning the 500 on his birthday. I’m happy for [Cindric’s crew chief] Jeremy Bullins and everyone that works on that 2 car.”

Confident going into the weekend, Cindric said he knew he had a car capable of winning, but there are no guarantees at the Daytona track. NASCAR’s second-longest oval breeds chaos, and simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time can shatter very realistic shots at winning the Daytona 500.

“I did not pack an extra set of clothes, by the way, so I’m not that confident,” Cindric said, laughing about how his expectations influenced his weekend wardrobe.

“I’ll be re-wearing my clothes from [Sunday on Monday], and I will have fresh underwear,” he joked. “So that’s a win.”

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Bubba Wallace crushed after runner-up finish at Daytona 500: ‘Like a gut punch’

Bubba Wallace finished second in the 2022 Daytona 500 by just 0.036 seconds.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Bubba Wallace was devastatingly close, painfully close.

And he felt the agony of defeat immediately, finishing the Daytona 500 on Sunday as the runner-up for the second time in his NASCAR Cup Series career.

Wallace missed out on what could have been his second consecutive superspeedway victory by just 0.036 seconds behind Cup rookie Austin Cindric in the 2022 season opener. It was the third-smallest margin of victory in Daytona 500 history, but in the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota’s driver’s eyes, it’s first or failure.

“Damn, I wanted to win that one,” said Wallace, who’s at the beginning of his fifth full-time Cup season and second with Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s team.

After parking his car on pit road with Cindric and the No. 2 Team Penske Ford team celebrating in the background, Wallace climbed halfway out of his car and sat in the opening of the driver’s seat window, taking a moment to himself. His heartbroken emotions seemed to be building inside, as he held back welling tears in his eyes.

Speaking to the media afterward, he reiterated his dejected feelings.

“Going down the back, [I was like], ‘Alright, pal, it can either end really bad or end really good,” Wallace said he thought to himself on the last lap in overtime. “‘This could hurt or the victory could be sweet.’ I think I’d rather get wrecked out than finish second.”

He was running among the top-5 drivers during that final trip around the 2.5-mile track. By the time he exited Turn 4 for a one last push to the finish line, he was up to third.

“We were gonna turn and burn right there,” Wallace’s crew chief, Bootie Barker, said about the No. 23 team’s approach to the two-lap shootout to close the race. “All out, take ‘em out, whatever you’ve gotta do.”

And when Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney went to make a move on his teammate Cindric, who was leading the race, Wallace had an opportunity on the inside of the track. Cindric moved to the outside to throw a block on Blaney, but with an open lane on the inside, Wallace just couldn’t get there.

“I felt like I had a really good chance to lose it, and to lose it means you’ve got a shot to win it,” Cindric said.

“You talk about Brad [Keselowski], Ryan, Bubba — a lot of the guys that I was having to fend off there at the end of the race are guys that have been in the sport for a while and have paid their dues and put themselves in position every time at these types of races.”

And this is the second time Wallace has been in this specific situation, finishing second to Austin Dillon in the 2018 Daytona 500. But he said this one came with “a total different emotion.”

Wallace was a Cup rookie four years ago and said he “didn’t know what [he] was doing” back then running up toward the front. This time around, he “really thought we had it.”

“I didn’t have a fighting chance in the first time in 2018,” Wallace said. “This one, being that close, it’s just like a gut punch. So going from all the confidence in the world to literally having it ripped out from underneath you is a really [expletive] feeling.”

Wallace being in contention at the end was far from a surprise. He now has four top-5 finishes at Daytona and was again the runner-up in August in 400-mile regular-season finale before earning his first career Cup victory at Talladega Superspeedway in October.

“He definitely has a knack for [superspeedway races],” Barker said, noting it’s instinctual and not something you can teach racers. “You gotta have good stuff, but Bubba’s exceptional at these places.”

23XI Racing director of competition Mike Wheeler praised Wallace’s confidence and aggressiveness in the final laps not taking his foot off the gas. But second place, even one by 0.036 seconds, still isn’t a win, and it stings, Barker said.

Wallace caught his first glimpse of the finish on the big screen while on pit road and couldn’t help but look as it replayed.

“Ooooh, I don’t want to see that,” he said. “That sucks! God! That sucks!”

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NASCAR rookie Austin Cindric edged Bubba Wallace in outrageously narrow Daytona 500 finish

Austin Cindric won the 2022 Daytona 500 by 0.036 seconds.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It wasn’t the narrowest margin of victory in Daytona 500 history, but it was close. And Austin Cindric’s full-time NASCAR Cup Series debut couldn’t have gone any better.

The new Team Penske Ford driver held off a parade of furiously charging drivers behind him on the final lap of the 2022 season opener Sunday at Daytona International Speedway and narrowly edged Bubba Wallace for the checkered flag.

Inches, fractions of a car length, hundredths of a second — 0.036 to be exact.

That was the difference between Cindric in the No. 2 car and Wallace in the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota in what became a true photo finish in the 64th Daytona 500.

“Oh, my god,” Cindric said afterward, seemingly in disbelief. “Do you know what makes it all better? A packed house. A packed house at the Daytona 500. …

“I’m surrounded by great people — that’s all there is to it. I know there’s going to be highs and lows, being a rookie in a field of drivers this strong. I’m just grateful for the opportunity, excited to climb the mountain we’ve got ahead of us on the [No.] 2 team.”

The 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, Cindric became the second youngest Daytona 500 champ following Trevor Bayne, who won the 2011 race at the age of 20 years and one day.

“He didn’t make a mistake today,” said team owner Roger Penske, who turned 85 on Sunday, praising the 23-year-old rookie.

Chase Briscoe finished third, Ryan Blaney fourth and Aric Almirola, in his final NASCAR season, fifth.

Cindric replaced Brad Keselowski, who became a driver-owner for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, in the No. 2 Ford this year and took his first career checkered flag in the biggest race of the season. The victory also locks Cindric into the 10-race playoffs in the fall.

Cindric got a big push from his Team Penske teammate Blaney in the No. 12 Ford in the two-lap overtime shootout to hold off Wallace, who collected his second runner-up finish at the Daytona 500 after finishing second in 2018. Wallace had captured his first career Cup Series win at last year’s Talladega Superspeedway playoff race after finishing second at the Daytona 400-lap summer race, which served as the 2021 regular-season finale.

Kyle Busch overcame early damage to finish sixth, last year’s winner, Michael McDowell, finished seventh, while David Ragan, Keselowski and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10.

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