CONCORD, N.C. – NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff contender Austin Cindric finished third in Saturday afternoon’s Drive for the Cure 200 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval in an impressive comeback after facing a series of obstacles after winning his third career pole earlier in the day.
Cindric led the opening 13 laps of the race until he spun from the lead in Turn 6. Despite losing the lead to Daniel Hemric, he was able to recover and finish fourth in Stage 1.
Throughout Stage 2, Cindric kept his No. 22 MoneyLion Ford Mustang inside the top-10 until he elected to make a green flag pit stop for tires, fuel and adjustments. Cindric soon found more trouble after his pit stop when he collided with Justin Allgaier on Lap 29 in Turns 3 and 4.
With minimal damage from the incident, Cindric was able to start fifth for the start of Stage 3 and continued to surge through the front.
On Lap 46, Daniel Hemric blew the frontstretch chicane following a late-race restart allowing Cindric to climb to third trapped behind Justin Marks. Despite his best efforts, Cindric could not pass Marks for the runner-up spot, but finished third, earning his fourth top-five finish of the 2018 Xfinity Series season.
After the race, Cindric said he was proud of his team for overcoming their challenges and finding themselves in a position to strike if they would have seen another restart.
“It’s funny. I complained about not having too much long-run speed last week and too much short-run speed this weekend,” said Cindric. “I guess I’ve got to make up my mind, but I’m just over the moon for Chase. He’s had a tough year. He’s been down on himself and this should be all the reason enough for Tony Stewart to put him in a car full-time, so I’m super excited for my buddy.
“I’m just thankful we were able to get a nice, solid run. It wasn’t a perfect day. I made my own mistakes.”
For the second straight race, Cindric and Allgaier tangled with Allgaier coming out on the raw end of the stick. Cindric finished third, while Allgaier finished 15th and is seventh in points.
Cindric explained that he and Allgaier spoke on pit road after the race and while Allgaier was frustrated with the situation, Cindric didn’t expect any further retaliation moving forward.
“I’ve got to apologize to the 7 (Allgaier),” Cindric explained. “Obviously, it was a weird merge off of pit road. The 35 kind of checked up and I was just trying to get out of the way, so it was kind of a bummer that we didn’t have a clean day, but it’s good to come home third and get some stage points.”
Saturday’s race was the penultimate race in the Round of 12 in the Xfinity Series Playoffs. Heading to Dover (Del.) International Speedway, Cindric sits ninth in the Xfinity Series standings, nine points behind the cutoff line in eight – currently held by Ross Chastain.
“If I didn’t spin out there (in Stage 1) I would be four or five points ahead of the (playoff) cut line. So, there are some mistakes there that have to be minimized,” Cindric continued.
“From the playoff perspective, me and Daniel (Hemric) were the two fastest cars. We both made mistakes that cost us a better finish. You’ve got to have a car that can go on the switchback stuff and makeup time in those places. I was trying to make up time in the aggressive spots.”
While nervous about his placement, Cindric is optimistic about returning to Dover (Del.) International Speedway next weekend after finishing ninth in the spring after starting seventh in the No. 12 Ford for Team Penske.
“That’s the kind of day I needed, so we’ll move on and go to Dover,” he said. “I think we can run well and have another good run in our Ford Mustang.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
