Austin Cindric seals a career-best NASCAR season with Xfinity Series championship

Austin Cindric finished a career-best Xfinity season with a championship title at Phoenix Raceway. The Team Penske driver raced to a confident win Saturday night despite a late-lap caution that forced overtime.

With six laps left and Cindric in the lead, the caution flag came out, forcing a final restart and a decision for the No. 22 Ford team: They relinquished a first-place position for new tires.

It was a call crew chief Brian Wilson said was informed by watching Friday’s Truck Series championship, in which winner Sheldon Creed found enough speed to win the race after a late pit stop and tire change. Wilson said he spoke with Creed’s crew chief, Jeff Stankiewicz, before the Xfinity race at the one-mile track.

“Just watching between that and what I saw in the Cup race in the spring,” Wilson said. “Where it seemed like tires really mattered.”

The car quickly outpaced the field after the final restart, and Cindric retook the first place spot in the final lap, passing inside second place finisher Noah Gragson, and holding on through the flag. Cindric’s sixth win of the season sets hims up to be a persistent threat when he returns to the series next year. He will graduate to the Cup Series in 2022 driving the No. 21 car for Wood Brothers Racing, which is affiliated with Team Penske.

“A lot has happened in a short amount of time in my career,” Cindric said after his championship win. “I probably never would have told you 10 years ago that I’d be winning races for Roger Penske at this level as a 22-year-old.”

The victory could be first of many for the driver who has roots that run deep in the racing community. He is the son of Team Penske president Tim Cindric, who recalled his son winning his first race for the organization, then watched as his son fielded questions from media members after winning an Xfinity Series title.

“It was such a big deal in my mind that he could always say that he had a chance to drive for Roger Penske,” Tim Cindric said. “And I think every driver that’s ever had that opportunity has made that same comment. And when it’s your son, it’s even that much more special.”

It was only fitting that Cindric’s breakout season, in which he earned six wins, 19 top fives and 26 top 10s, was capped by a race that highlighted the driver’s dynamic qualities behind the wheel. The race was no blowout. Cindric had to try multiple lanes and weave between the other Championship 4 drivers, fending off Justin Allgaier in the final stage, as battles for the lead continued through the evening.

Cindric was the constant. He challenged Chase Briscoe early in the race, nearly passing the No. 98 at the first green-and-white checkered flag, before winning Stage 2. Briscoe won Stage 1, but equipment issues and a loose car kept the nine-time 2020 race winner from being a threat for most of the night. He dropped spots through the final stage and brought out the final caution running out of the top three.

“I’ve never felt so little in my life thinking if he didn’t end up winning it’s going to be costly,” Briscoe said. “I was just so loose all day long, and I don’t know if I wheel‑hopped or what.”

It was a move that was uncharacteristic for the Ford driver set to graduate to the Cup Series next season. Allgaier said he was “surprised” Briscoe was the one who brought out the flag. Briscoe called it “embarrassing.”

He finished the race in ninth place, what he called a frustrating end to a season in which he earned nine wins, 16 top fives and 22 top-10 finishes. Briscoe will replace Clint Bowyer driving the No. 14 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing next season. He said if he didn’t win the race, he wanted the victory to go to Cindric, who he congratulated after the race.

“We’ve always been teammates, always worked together and obviously good friends,” Briscoe said. “If I couldn’t win, obviously I wanted him to win, not only because he was a Ford guy but obviously just that friendship.”

Allgaier was almost the factor that kept Cindric from the Victory Lane moment. He led 76 laps of the 206-lap race (Cindric led 72). The No. 7 driver had a fast Chevrolet throughout the evening, but strategy didn’t play in his favor when the final caution flew. Allgaier was on older tires after choosing not to pit. He led the restart, but fell behind to close the race in fifth.

“I felt like if we had been able to run the bottom like normal and not run stuck in that high groove, I felt like we definitely would have had the best car,” Allgaier said. “So I’m disappointed in that, but at the end of the race today we were on old tires. I knew it was going to be sketchy at best.”

Non-championship drivers Noah Gragson and Brandon Jones finished in second and third, respectively. Chevrolet won the Xfinity Series manufacturer title, and Harrison Burton was named the Rookie of the Year following his two wins in the Round of 8.

Justin Haley, the final Championship 4 driver, never challenged for a top spot during the race. He was working with a different pit crew team after a member of his No. 11 Kaulig Racing team tested positive for COVID-19, but he said the appearance in the title race was still special, a first for his team.

“Awesome for all of the guys and men and women at Kaulig Racing,” Haley said. “Special moment for us. ... All day we fought hard, just lacked a little bit, and we actually found it just a little bit, (just) too late.”

The night belonged to Cindric, who reflected on his racing journey that he said began with more struggles than a natural affinity for oval racing. He said the journey has been one of a lot of practice and studying, which paid off Saturday night.

“A lot of self-criticism,” Cindric said. “For me, that’s the hard work I had to put in.”

He said that if he had been asked 10 years ago if this is where he’d be tonight, celebrating a NASCAR national series championship, “I would have told you that’s crazy,” Cindric said.

But with a fast car, good strategy and hard work, crazy became reality.

NASCAR Xfinity championship race at Phoenix results