Cindric<\/a> <\/strong>finished fourth at the Roval last year, his best road course performance to date. Unfortunately, he finished 34th at Kansas and 32nd at Talladega, the two rounds of 12 races before the finale at the Roval, and he was ultimately eliminated from advancing to the Round of 8.<\/p>\n\u201cWe were in a must-win last year, but it\u2019s gonna have to be a good event for us regardless, but it has been frustrating,\u201d\u00a0Cindric added.<\/p>\n
Cindric just barely made it through this year\u2019s Round of 16, finishing 12th at Darlington, 19th at Gateway, and 30th at Bristol. He and his No. 2 Team Penske Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse come into Kansas in 10th place, 19 points below the final transfer spot with two races remaining.<\/p>\n
Is it time to be desperate yet?<\/p>\n
Well, Cindric is not feeling desperate yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould I be desperate?\u201d he asked. Obviously, we have to go out and have two really good days, and just as likely that the others do the same or get into trouble. Kansas and the Charlotte road course have been two very challenging racetracks as far as getting into wrecks or getting behind, so I think there\u2019s a lot of opportunity for us, and (minus-) 19 is totally not out of the question, especially in two race events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not getting ahead of my skis here at all, but I think from our standpoint, you have to look at it realistically and think that we\u2019re gonna have to go out and have two of our best weeks of the year to go make this happen on points, but I think those are two tracks that we\u2019re capable of doing that. I\u2019m excited for this weekend. It pumps me up. We\u2019ve got nothing to lose and everything to go out and gain. I think that\u2019s kind of where my head\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does Cindric believe things could suddenly turn positive at Kansas and continue through at Charlotte, sending him on into the Round of 8?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think any race has really gone the way we wanted it to so far,\u201d he said. \u201cI can sit here and list off all the reasons why, and a lot of ways, I feel like that\u2019s how our season has gone this year. If I looked at my season from the perspective of a top 10 means I\u2019m good or not, I\u2019d go crazy because we\u2019ve had a lot more than just that, but we have to go out and put it up there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to get results and results equal points, whether that\u2019s in the stages or at the end of the races.\u00a0My pit crew has probably been doing the best job they have all year and been super consistent and super reliable through the playoffs.\u00a0I\u2019d say that\u2019s probably one of my overwhelming positives.\u00a0Past that, we\u2019ve done what we needed to, but what we did in the last round is not going to be enough to get us through, and I also don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ve been able to achieve our maximum in those races, either.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s really where my head\u2019s at and where my focus is because I do feel like if we achieve the maximum of what we\u2019re capable of as a group, or much closer to it, I feel like we\u2019ll find ourselves in a very favorable position to continue fighting for a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin Cindric realizes he still has a race this weekend at Kansas Speedway before next week\u2019s Round of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":258781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[109727,1406,62,9653,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-258780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-austin-cindric","9":"tag-nascar","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-team-penske","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115276406177496728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}