Cup Series reality comes knocking for young Cindric
Austin Cindric has been knocked back into reality.
Cindric started the
NASCAR Cup Series season on the highest of highs by winning the
Daytona 500. That was
Feb. 20 and in the immediate aftermath, the 23-year-old became a shining star pulled in all directions, thrust through obligation after obligation and oh, lest we forget, still trying to develop a relationship with his race team.
It was anything but a typical start to the season for a rookie. And it’s taken until just recently for things to settle down enough to allow Cindric to begin to feel like a rookie getting his bearings in NASCAR’s top division.
“Honestly, starting last week was the first time I really had a normal week leading up to a race as far as not traveling during the week and a lot of different variables,” Cindric says. “From that standpoint, yeah, it’s been great to get a process down that I probably haven’t had the luxury of the first couple of weeks of the year. The honeymoon phase is certainly over; trying to figure out (being) a rookie in the Cup Series. It certainly isn’t easy.”
While it’s been nonstop for Cindric away from the public eye, on the racetrack, he’s been almost out of sight and out of mind since leaving Daytona Beach, Florida. Results for the No. 2 team have been up and down, although a close look at the loop data (specific performance metrics) suggests Cindric is finishing about where’s he’s running each week.
He failed to finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway – where drivers faced a revamped 1.5-miler that raced like a superspeedway, he was one of 31 drivers involved in incidents.
The eighth-place effort on the COTA road course March 27 was Cindric’s first top-10 finish since the Daytona 500. It was also the first race since Daytona where he’d led laps.