Austin Cindric's Golden Ticket Moment Thwarted by Late Crash at Talladega
With less than five laps to go, Austin Cindric was in prime position to capture a victory in Sunday's YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, a victory that would advance the No. 2 team into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and erase the struggles of Kansas.
Coming into the weekend, Cindric was among the top points earners on superspeedways this season, and the Team Penske driver, once again, continued to collect valuable stage points, scoring a ninth-place in the first stage, and winning the race's second.
The No. 2 Ford Mustang Dark Horse spent the entire afternoon running near the front of the pack, and with five laps remaining, Cindric led the inside lane, trading the lead back and forth with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. each time the field crossed under the start-finish line.
However, as quick as the blink of an eye, things went sideways for Cindric -- literally.
After successfully lapping Todd Gilliland, the inside lane experienced a loss of momentum that allowed the No. 2 Ford Mustang to open a significant gap on Brad Keselowski, the second car in line on the bottom. When things got reconnected, the aggressive bump sent Cindric sideways, triggering a massive accident.
What followed was a massive 28-car accident at the end of the Talladega Superstretch, the largest accident in the recorded history of the NASCAR Cup Series, which took out several drivers still eligible for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
As the first car sent spinning in front of the pack, Cindric was ping-ponged around into oncoming traffic, taking at least five separate impacts in the accident, including a particularly big one at the end from Daniel Hemric -- causing enough damage to the No. 31 to end Hemric's day.
"In that position, the best thing you can do is be as predictable as possible, keep your car as straight as possible," said Cindric after the wreck. "The front of the pack got shuffled up from [Todd Gilliland] basically splitting the whole field, which definitely caused some congestion with guys getting out of lanes and obviously an off-center push from [Brad Keselowski] and that's it for our race."
Before the accident ended his afternoon prematurely, Cindric had spent 29 laps pacing the NASCAR Cup Series field. The Mooresville, North Carolina native has been one of the best superspeedway racers all season, leading laps in all six events at Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta.
"We had an exceptionally fast race car. It was A-plus execution by everyone on the 2 car, so I’m proud of the effort but definitely a bummer to be that close to punching our ticket," Cindric added. "[...] Unfortunately, that’s how Daytona ended for us and I think what that says is we’ve got really fast race cars and great execution. As the leader, I was trying to be as predictable as possible as far as taking pushes and it’s just a real shame."
Unfortunately for the 26-year-old driver, who has been among the strongest cars in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs thus far, a poor result in Sunday's event at Talladega leaves him a difficult 29 points below the cutline heading to the final race in the Round of 12 at the Charlotte ROVAL.
"I don't really feel like doing a whole lot of complaining about what happened or whose fault it is, it doesn't really matter," Cindric said. "It puts us in a must-win situation for the Charlotte Road Course. We've brought some exceptionally fast race cars every single race of the playoffs and I cannot understate how proud I am of my race team, and we'll have to bring another one next week."
While Cindric has never won in the NASCAR Cup Series on a road course, he does have a combined six road course victories between the NASCAR Xfinity and Truck Series. However, he'll have some tough competition, with AJ Allmendinger and Shane Van Gisbergen in the field for Sunday's event.
We've seen plenty of walk-off victories in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs over the last decade, could Austin Cindric be the next, at the newly-reconfigured Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL?
