TALLADEGA, Ala. — As the laps began to wind down during Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway, Austin Cindric was in control.
He didn’t lead every single lap, but throughout the final stint of the race, Cindric paced the bottom lane around the high-banked speedway. A win would’ve guaranteed a spot in the round of 8, putting him in NASCAR’s semifinal playoff round. It would’ve been a massive turnaround from Kansas Speedway, where he finished 34th after a pit road issue and a crash. He entered Sunday’s race at the bottom of the playoff grid.
The first 183 laps at Talladega were reasonably tame. There had been just two cautions for cause, but as the intensity picked up in the closing laps, the big one seemed inevitable.
And the big one ended up being the huge one.
Cindric got jacked out of line by Brad Keselowski, triggering a 28-car crash down the backstretch and into Turn Three with five laps to go. According to NBC, it was the largest crash in series history. The melee claimed several playoff drivers in one way, shape or form, but for the guy who led with his season possibly on the line – it stung the most.
The wreck reminded him of how he got taken out at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway back in August. He led 10 times for 29 laps Sunday before his race ended prematurely.
“I just got turned at the front of the field,” Cindric said from the infield care center. “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.
“The front of the pack got shuffled up from the 38 basically splitting the whole field, which definitely caused some congestion with guys getting out of lanes and obviously an off-center push from the 6 and that’s it for our race.
“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.”
With the round of 12 cutoff race looming at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, Cindric sits 29 points below the cutline.
“It puts us in a must-win situation for the Charlotte Road Course,” he said. “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.”
Of note, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott were among the other contending playoff drivers involved in the crash. Both drivers ran inside the top five when the incident was sparked up front. Logano couldn’t finish the race and placed 33rd, while Elliott limped his No. 9 machine home in 29th, five laps down. Elliott holds the final transfer spot by 13 points over Logano.
“I was not in the position to win the race where I was, but I felt like I was in a good enough spot to where I could get a top five, and if they started crossing each other up coming to the checkered I was on the bottom and things were gonna work fairly well for us,” Logano said. “I actually thought the bottom was the safest place to be, but the 2 got sideways and there I was.
“It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not Brad’s fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just the product of the racing that we’ve got. Everyone is getting more and more aggressive as the laps wind down and it happens. It happens a lot.”
Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe, Daniel Suárez and Christopher Bell were also among the playoff drivers with damage, but all managed to finish.