Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 2 Menards/Moen Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Team Penske, kicks off the Round of 12 in ninth place, four points below the cut line. He was part of a NASCAR press conference earlier today in which he discussed this weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway and the key to getting through this round.
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Menards/Moen Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DO YOU FEEL YOU GUYS STACK UP ON THE MILE AND A HALVES WITH THE OTHER TEAMS? “I think it’s been awhile since we’ve had a traditional mile and a half race. We kind of had a string of races in May and early on in the year, and Michigan I thought was a decent event for us, but obviously that’s a two-mile oval, so I think it’s gonna be a great read for where we’re at. There are two of those with Homestead and Vegas in the Round of 8, so I think whatever progress we’ve made and whatever we’ve learned throughout the year, yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a strength to start the year for us, but certainly a lot learned since then.”
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THIS ROUND, WINNING MOVES YOU ON BUT BEYOND THAT WHAT IS YOUR PATHWAY TO THE THIRD ROUND? “I think, for us, it’s really replicating a similar performance from the Round of 16, the first round for us. You look at the numbers and what we did for the past round is probably the bare minimum of what’s gonna get us to advance for this round, so from a points perspective it definitely gets more challenging, especially the deficit we have to the top four or five guys. It definitely becomes more of an issue when you start to eliminate guys that are in a similar space as far as points go as what we are. Otherwise, a win obviously is what you want to do, especially to be able to do it in the first two races. That makes things a lot easier, but I think, for us, I still think this is a no-mistakes round, this is don’t take yourself out of it and race within our limits.”
WITH THE CHANGES DOES IT MAKE IT MORE DICIER THAN BEFORE AT THE CHARLOTTE ROVAL? “I’m not sure if the track layout changes make it more of a challenge or less of a challenge of a racetrack. I think it just makes it different. I think anytime you have a bit of an unknown there are different things you might need in your car that you don’t know of or a different way that the race is gonna be more challenging. I think the hairpin there could make the restarts and the racing may be a bit more dynamic. I think that’s the hope. The frontstretch chicane just, to me, seems like it’s different and it might change the launch of restarts. It’s kind of yet to be seen. I’m hearing a couple different iterations. I don’t think the track is completely finished with their updates yet, so I’m definitely curious to see how that evolves over the next few weeks leading up to the race.”
HOW ABOUT THE CHANGES TO THE INFIELD. WILL IT BE A STEEPER DECLINE? “Yeah, what I remember is the hairpin. That would be I guess the new turn seven, kind of where turn eight used to be, so from what I’ve gathered there’s a pretty big elevation change going down into the new turn six, which will be kind of interesting, whether if we get cars off the ground or not through there. I got to do a couple laps in the sim once we got the updates this week, just to kind of see what it was like and it will be interesting to see if we keep all four on the ground going over that hill.”
WHAT ARE A COUPLE KEYS TO HAVING A SUCCESSFUL PLAYOFF RACE AT TALLADEGA? “Finishing is number one. I would say next, for us these races have been great for stage points. I think to be able to do that, you have to execute strategy, but I think qualifying matters for that as well for the first stage, if not for the first two. The racing, obviously, gets crazy there and being able to work with your teammates. All three of us are in the playoffs right now, so being able to work with those guys – and we all have similar priorities – so I think those three things, qualifying, strategy and not getting wrecked, that’s kind of every week, but you can really control your destiny if you can control those values.”
WHAT QUALITIES MAKE FOR A GOOD SUPERSPEEDWAY RACE IN THIS ERA? “I think it’s ever changing. I think from a driver’s standpoint, just kind of recognizing the position that you’re in, really. Like, what role do you have within the pack. The reason I say that is you don’t necessarily have as many options to kind of move forward throughout the pack, so kind of recognizing what position you’re in and when you do have an opportunity to move forward, whether it’s high risk or low risk, or if you’re in the first three or four rows, what’s your role? What are you able to do to advance yourself forward or advance the row forward? And, what’s more important? Advancing yourself forward or the row? So, I think knowing your role and where you exist on track is probably more important than it has ever been for a driver.”
YOU CAN SEE THE CUT LINE FROM WHERE YOU ARE. THIS ROUND FEELS LIKE TWO WILD CARDS AND KANSAS. IS THAT THE PLACE WHERE YOU HAVE TO MAKE A BIG MOVE? “Yes and no. I think Kansas is fairly straight up. If we show up there and have speed and execute well, that’s something that we can control and if we’re able to control that there better than other places or not, it’s kind of hard to say. I mean, restarts there are absolutely nuts. Just going over film and data today, that place is pretty unforgiving on restarts, so I don’t think you can take anything for granted or approach this weekend as a calm weekend. There’s a lot on the line, so from that standpoint I kind of approach all three of them the same.”
DO YOU HAVE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS AT KANSAS BEFORE YOU MAP OUT A GAME PLAN FOR TALLADEGA AND THEN THE ROVAL? “Yeah, I don’t really view those two differently. If I have a good weekend or a bad weekend this weekend, my job still kind of remains the same. I really do feel like other than a race win, I think we’re obviously more than capable of pointing our way in with where we sit now. I don’t really approach those two races any differently than I would Kansas.”
YOU ARE THE CONSISTENCY GUY, BUT TO GET TO THIS POINT SOME OF THOSE BIGGER TRACKS YOU GUYS HAVE STRUGGLED WITH. DO YOU HAVE A PLAN B AT THIS POINT ON TRACKS LIKE TALLADEGA? “It’s hard to say. Obviously, from a results standpoint it’s certainly been a challenge to finish races out on the speedways as it is for most, but I feel pretty confident in our speedway program and honestly Michigan was probably one of our best intermediates in a while. I just plugged the fence pretty early on, so I think from maybe on the surface this round could be a challenge or those races could be a challenge, I don’t know, it’s hard to say, but I feel good about it, so I’m not overly concerned from that standpoint. I feel like there’s a lot of challenges with a place like Talladega that are somewhat out of your control and some are very much in your control. Like you said, the one thing that we’ve had at all of those tracks is we’ve had speed in our cars. That certainly makes my job easier as a driver.”
IS THERE A POINT IN A RACE WEEKEND WHERE YOU REALIZE YOU MAY NOT HAVE A WINNING CAR AND CHANGING YOUR STRATEGY TO GET THE BEST FINISH YOU CAN? “I think you just defined my tone for the first two rounds of the playoffs, which is, for me and my team, it’s race within our limits. If that’s going out and trying to win a race, I don’t know how many laps we led at Atlanta, but that was a race that winning was within our limits. Winning was in the cards for us with the pace that we had, with the race-ablility that we had, whereas maybe Bristol a top 10 was gonna be the best we could, but we didn’t qualify very well, so having a solid effort was all we needed to do there, especially from a points standpoint, so I think that all falls in the category of racing within your own limits, not trying to do anything overly special just because it’s the playoffs. We got here for a reason and we’ve been doing things a certain way for I don’t know how many weeks it’s been since February, but I think it’s only a detriment to you and your team if you try and do things differently now.”
YOUR AVERAGE FINISH AT KANSAS IN THE NEXT GEN ERA IS NOT THAT GREAT. HOW DO YOU TURN THAT AROUND THIS WEEKEND? “Like I said earlier, I think it’s gonna be a great gauge for us on where we’re at from a performance standpoint at tracks like that. It’s a track that I feel good about personally. I couldn’t have told you my average finish there, but it doesn’t sound fantastic finishing second to dead last in the spring. That doesn’t help any of that. Before then, we qualified in the top 10 and ran inside of the top 15 all day. Nothing spectacular, but I wouldn’t say it’s a horrendous track for us, but we certainly haven’t had cars in Victory Lane there and that’s the goal, so, like I said before, we’ll put our best foot forward and see what we’ve got and hopefully it’s something we can contend with this weekend.”
HAVE YOU PINPOINTED ANYTHING YOU CAN IMPROVE ON THIS TIME AROUND? “Well, not getting wrecked I think falls in that category. Past that, I feel like I could give you a million driver excuses of certain things I could have done better or whatever else, but it’s certainly been progress since we’ve started with the car. I’ve definitely learned a lot. It’s a place I feel like it’s a really smooth racetrack and I feel like there are some teams that have very strong weekends at tracks like that, kind of like a Michigan where you see cars like maybe the 17 or the 19. Those guys seem to run really well at Michigan and Kansas. I feel like those two are interchangeable, so cars that you see run well at Michigan could probably run well at Kansas. I don’t know if that answers your question or not, but I’m gonna try and just worry about us.”
Campbell Marketing and Communications PR
