DOVER, Del. – Austin Cindric has been here before.
Last year, the 19-year-old found himself in the hunt for a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway after making it through the rounds to the Championship 4 driving for Brad Keselowski Racing.
Fast forward 11 months later, Cindric, now a rookie in the Xfinity Series is a Playoff contender but will need nearly a perfect race in Saturday afternoon’s Bar Harbor 200 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway to keep his eligibility alive towards another drive to the Championship 4.
Currently ninth in the standings and nine points behind the cutoff position held by Ross Chastain, the son of Team Penske president Tim Cindric doesn’t believe he’ll need the automatic factor of a win on Saturday to propel into the Round of 8, but the Mooresville, N.C.-native does know he needs a strong finish to aid his effort.
“Sitting below the cut line I still don’t think of it as a must-win,” said Cindric. “I mean, we saw how crazy the Cup race was at the Roval. Obviously, that was kind of expected at that race track, but even with the way each round has kind of jumbled the points, I feel like nine points isn’t the most daunting task. I’ve still got to have a perfect race, still got to get really good stage points, still got to be able to finish and put myself in a position at the end of the race.”
If there’s a thorn that could derail Cindric’s optimistic outlook, it’s the fear of getting collected in attrition, especially late in the race.
“I think out of all the places we go to when you hear caution breed cautions this is probably one of the biggest places that that’s true because of how the track changes for restarts and how the rubber picks up and how it changes everyone’s balance,” he said.
“I think we saw that in the spring and we’ll probably see it again here.”
Knowing two good stage performances on Saturday could easily make up his deficit, Cindric also believes although he doesn’t think he needs to win his first Xfinity race to advance forward, his Team Penske team will give him a car capable of doing so.
“Do I think we can win this weekend? Yeah, I think we can,” sounded Cindric. “I think this is one of my stronger tracks. I’ve been here a few times. Obviously, I think we have got a really good notebook to go off of, but at the same time it’s still open for anybody.
“I think Justin (Allgaier) is gonna be really hard to beat this weekend. Obviously, he won the race in the spring, so I’m excited for this weekend. I always love coming here. It’s one of my favorite tracks, but everyone has got to be able to execute everything perfect and I feel like that’s something I’ve tried really hard to accomplish in a race weekend and I don’t see a better weekend to that than here.”
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