Cindric knocks his way to Chevrolet Silverado 250 win

BOWMANVILLE, ONT.— Although he might have preferred to have done it another way, Austin Cindric won the Chevrolet Silverado 250 in true NASCAR style Sunday by running into the car that was leading and knocking it out of the way.

It marked the fourth time in five years that the Labour Day weekend Camping World Series trucks race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park ended in controversy on the last lap.

Winner Cindric said it was something he had to do in order to win the race and to qualify for the truck series playoffs while victim Kaz Grala, who wound up third, called it a dirty move.

It was almost a perfect weekend for Cindric, son of Tim Cindric, who is president of Team Penske in the IndyCar Series. He celebrated his 19th birthday Saturday by winning the pole in record time and he won the first stage of Sunday’s three-stage main event.

But then he ran into difficulty. During a pit stop, he pulled away too quickly while the fuel can was still attached to his truck and he was handed a stop-and-go penalty.

He rejoined the race in 17th place and managed to work his way back up to ninth by the end of the second stage.

He then went from ninth to third and — on the final restart following a late-race caution—he quickly dispatched second-place runner Noah Gragson, who eventually finished third.

He then started to chase down the leader, Grala, who had driven a strong race all afternoon.

As they ripped into Moss Corner on the final lap, Cindric had worked up a head of steam and would either have had to hit his brakes or else crash the front-running Graza out of the lead, which is what he decided to do.

“It’s too bad,” Cindric said about the collision. “He was doing an awesome job of staying in front of me on old tires. I wanted to pass him clean, because I’m all about that, but at the end of the day this is what NASCAR racing’s about — to win and get a playoff position. You can’t finish second.”

Cindric, a veteran racing driver despite this age, who recorded his first victory in the Camping World Series, said he was faced with a choice.

“I had an opportunity to get into the back of him in (corner) 5 and I decided to take it. Everybody (in previous years) has done it on the last corner, I figured I might as well change that!”

Grala, for his part, said Cindric had been fast all race and was catching him at the end. “He had more speed than we had and I was just trying to hold him off. Usually when you get to someone you try to pass him and he really didn’t.

“He kind of just drove in there and used me as his brakes. He didn’t even move me out of the way; he just turned me straight around. I understand what he had on the line, a playoff spot, but if I’d been in his situation, I’d have moved him out of the way.

“I wouldn’t have let him win; I’d have tried to ‘door’ him out of the way so we were at least going in the same direction.

“It was just a dirty move. I have a lot of respect for him as a road-course racer but I definitely lost a lot today. That’s not how I race people and that’s not how I deserve to be raced either.”

Until the last lap, the trucks race had been a tame affair compared with previous years. And some really exciting road-course racing was featured, including — at one point — trucks running four-wide through corner 4, which some would have said was impossible if they hadn’t seen it.

And that the trucks are motoring, let there be no doubt. Cindric’s pole time Saturday of 1 minute, 18.602 seconds was about four seconds faster than Jim Clark‘s pole-winning time of 1:22:4 for the first Formula One Canadian Grand Prix held at what was then Mosport Park in 1967.

Four Canadians were in the race but weren‘t really factors. D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas finished 14th, Jason Hathaway of Appin, Ont., was 15th, Alex Tagliani of Laval, Que., was 19th and Gary Klute of Halton Hills finished 24th.