Austin Cindric: Fast Cars, Hard Work Led to Superspeedway Emergence
At 26 years old, Team Penske racer Austin Cindric has a very long runway ahead of him in his NASCAR Cup Series driving career. However, even in the early stages of his racing career, the driver has shown a penchant for being one of the best drivers in the game at superspeedway tracks, where drafting is the name of the game.
Cindric's abilities in the pack have become so pronounced that one of the best to ever compete at the high-speed superspeedways in NASCAR, Denny Hamlin, has taken notice.
"It's why in my opinion, right now one of the greatest superspeedway drivers we have is Austin Cindric," Hamlin said on his post-Daytona 500 edition of Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin. "When I go to the outside of him, he doesn't try to block. He knows what the result of that is going to be. He wants to live to race it off of [Turn] 4. And he knows if I get beside him, it's not over. It's not over."
On Saturday, at Atlanta Motor Speedway Cindric was asked about the praise heaped upon him by Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 champion, and Cindric was pleased to hear the glowing review of his driving style in superspeedway races.
"I think for me, it's a very high compliment. Not oftentimes do you get to earn the respect, but also hear the level of respect that your competitors have for you," Cindric said of Hamlin's comments. "As far as superspeedway racing goes, Denny has been one of the best for the last couple of decades. To have his high opinion like that is pretty cool. I think that's what made the end of the race significant and special for me at the time, and in reflection, is just knowing I was going to have to outduel him if I wanted to win the Daytona 500."
While Cindric, who will start Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway from the second position in the starting lineup alongside his Team Penske teammate and polesitter Ryan Blaney, has blossomed into one of the top-notch superspeedway racers in NASCAR, the driver recalls a time when he wasn't a fan of drafting his way around the high banks.
"I can think of my first two truck races I did on superspeedways, and I hated it," Cindric recalled. "I hated it because I didn't understand it, and then, even when we did the first race [at Atlanta] after the repave, I hated it, but that's because I didn't understand it. Now, when we come here, I feel like I look forward to it. I think that's a huge evolution, and that's not just allowing it to happen and understanding, you have to get better to enjoy this, right?"
As he began to understand the nuance of superspeedway racing, Cindric began to churn out better and better results in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and in his rookie NASCAR Cup Series season, Cindric was able to capture victory in the sport's biggest race -- the Daytona 500. A couple of years later, he's regarded by many as one of the best at this form of racing. Now, Cindric wants to continue to grow as a driver, and would like to be known as a great all-around driver.
"It's a challenging thing to be able to make progress like that at a level this high. It's only one area in what we do," Cindric said of superspeedway racing. "We have probably, what, eight races at speedway race tracks? And a lot of others at a lot of different race tracks, so, my goal as a race car driver in NASCAR is to be able to look at myself or my competitors look at me in a similar fashion at all styles of race tracks. But I guess one is a good start."
When pressed on what has turned him into such a great superspeedway racer in recent years, Cindric humbly chalked it up to the equipment he has under him at Team Penske, but also says its the result of a lot of homework.
"I think I can plead the fifth and just tell you I have a fast race car every time because I do," Cindric said prior to Saturday's qualifying session. "You know, I feel confident we can try to contend for the pole today, and try to contend for the win tomorrow. I think all of them are different and I think if you want to be able to expect yourself to contend every time you go to a drafting track, I feel like you have to prepare. I feel like the process I've kind of refined for myself over the years, and my prep work is pretty solid. I don't know if it's the best or not, hard to say, but I put a lot of work in and usually those are the tracks that require that type of work."
While Cindric and the Team Penske Fords showed incredible raw speed in the pack at Daytona, and continued that trend in qualifying for Sunday's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the driver of the No. 2 Ford Mustang Dark Horse feels another integral piece of the puzzle for winning on Sunday will be handling as the track surface, which was repaved in 2022, is starting to slow a tad more each time the NASCAR Cup Series returns to the facility.
"...The handling element of Atlanta, and this track aging and changing a bit, and the conditions being sensitive to this place, I feel like that's what really defines the racing each time that we've come here," Cindric explained. "Being able to stay close to guys is purely an effect of the handling of the cars. We've had some pretty good handling cars here in the past. But that's something that handling matters at Daytona, but maybe some more specific areas where it's if you want to compete this weekend, you'll have to be able to have a car that can handle all of that."
The NASCAR Cup Series Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway is set for Sunday, February 23. The race will be televised by FOX, and coverage will kick off at 3:00 PM ET.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.