MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Austin Cindric posted his best finish of the season (second) in last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.
With three more 1.5-mile tracks ahead in the Chase, including this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Cindric has confidence his Team Penske No. 2 Ford can make a move in the standings.
Cindric is ninth with six races remaining. He’s 140 points behind leader Kyle Larson
“I’m certainly hoping it translates. Obviously, there are plenty of similarities between the tracks, but also there are some pretty key differences, and I think the mile-and-a-halves coming up are just that much more different with Charlotte and Homestead,” Cindric said during a media teleconference. “I think being able to kind of verify our notebook, but have some validity from the weekend prior is really important for not just us on the 2 car, but everyone at Team Penske was definitely a step up in performance from the spring.”
Cindric’s not sure he can make a championship run, but he’s not giving up.
“I haven’t asked for the math, but if the math says I can do it, then I can do it,” Cindric said. “That’s really the only mentality I can have. I think for us to go from one of the lowest seeds to the top 10 in the standings is great, but, for me, the mentality since the Chase has started is to have fun and be loose and not really having anything to lose and all to gain. I think that’s how I’m gonna continue to race from here until the end of the season.”
Ford have come on strong during the final third of the season.
“I think a few weeks ago or the last month or so you could probably attribute it to the track type, but we’ve kind of checked the box at least with one mile-and-a-half,” Cindric said. “Like you said, it’s the team. It’s a whole group effort. As I said in the prior question, it’s a year’s worth of work to get us to this point. I’m proud to have that work pay off and hopefully we’ll be able to use that notebook to continue to excel for the remainder of the season.”
