How intertwined is Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Austin Cindric’s motorsports career? Start with his earliest memories, captured in photos, as a preschooler perched atop Helio Castroneves’ winning Indy 500 car nearly 20 years ago at the track’s famous yard of bricks. Add his connection to Sam Hornish Jr., who had long driving tenures in both NASCAR and IndyCar and won the Indy 500 in 2006. Cindric emulated Hornish by using his No. 77 in his earliest racing efforts.
“All those guys were my heroes,” Cindric says, adding Ryan Briscoe and Gil de Ferran to that starry driver list. A family move to North Carolina in his childhood gradually exposed him to how the world of stock-car racing works, and his eventual path to a career in NASCAR’s top levels was cast.
“Obviously I’ve understood a lot more from there and really, really grew to love NASCAR as well,” Cindric says. “Always paid attention as a kid but never really dove straight into it just because I’d been a big IndyCar fan, but it’s definitely a fun side of the sport, a different culture.”
Cindric’s twin racing interests converge this weekend in Indianapolis, where he’ll be again running double duty in Saturday’s Xfinity Series Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard (4 p.m. ET, NBCSN, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and Sunday’s Cup Series Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (1 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS, SiriusXM). Team Penske confirmed Monday morning that Sunday’s event will mark Cindric’s final Cup Series start of the season before his transition to full-time Cup duty next year in the No. 2 Ford.
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That send-off comes at a fitting venue, given his family’s history there. His father, Tim, who serves as Team Penske president, has been a part of eight Indianapolis 500 wins with the organization at the Speedway. Cindric also bears a connection to another longtime team owner in Jim Trueman, his grandfather on his mother’s side. Trueman fielded the winning entry at Indy in 1986 for Bobby Rahal, who dedicated the victory to his car owner in an emotional Victory Lane; Trueman died 11 days later after a bout with cancer. His paternal grandfather was also a fixture in Gasoline Alley, working as an engine builder back in the era of wooden garages at Indy.
No surprise then that until his NASCAR schedule became more extensive, the younger Cindric regularly attended the Indianapolis 500, missing on only rare occasions.
“I’ve been going on for quite a few years strong, so it’s a pretty special place to me, but really special to my family, really on both sides,” Cindric says, “so definitely some significance and it’s a fun place to go race at, and obviously somewhere that would be pretty cool to win.”
With such an Indy-centric family pedigree, Cindric’s route to a future in IndyCar would have seemed to be a near lock. But the 22-year-old driver’s career arc took a multi-directional path, giving him a background that’s among the sport’s most versatile. Cindric’s list of competition stops includes IMSA sports-car racing, the ARCA Menards Series, Camping World Trucks, US Formula 2000, Legends Cars, a dash of RallyCross and even a pair of starts in the Bathurst 12 Hour in Australia. Much of that time of late was spent in Ford’s development program. “It’s kind of a springboard to me into where I’m at today,” Cindric says.
Where he is now is a reliable Xfinity Series contender who has already experienced some prime Cup Series seasoning at a mix of track types. Sunday’s start will mark Cindric’s third on a road-course layout, but he’s also turned Cup Series laps at two intermediates (Atlanta, Kansas), a superspeedway (Daytona) and a short track (Richmond).
His Cup perspective has already evolved; initially tabbed for the No. 21 seat with the Penske-affiliated Wood Brothers team, Cindric is now set for Penske’s No. 2 ride after Brad Keselowski’s departure at season’s end. Though preparations remain in full swing for 2022, Cindric is concentrating his efforts on his Xfinity Series title defense. He leads the standings by a sizable 80-point margin over veteran AJ Allmendinger, and his four wins and 16 top-10 finishes lead all series regulars.
“Yeah, my job and my focus right now is to give ourselves and my team on the 22 car the best shot to win the Xfinity Series championship,” Cindric said. “So we’ve got to make it the final four. That’s the biggest box check, the closest thing we have to focus on right now in the month of August is wrapping up the regular season championship. That’s critically important, that’s a lot of playoff points, so that’s kind of the first box we need to finish checking off. We’ve done a great job so far this year but there’s a lot of racing left to go.”
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That 13-race stretch to close the Xfinity Series season sets sail this weekend at Indy, a track held in high esteem by Cindric but next-level loved by his team owner. Roger Penske’s entries have claimed a record 18 Indianapolis 500 victories, and the motorsports and business mogul added a new chapter to his lifelong adoration of the track by agreeing to buy the Speedway and the IndyCar Series in November 2019.
Little wonder that Cindric’s future Cup Series teammate Ryan Blaney quipped when asked if Penske had placed any added pressure on his drivers to perform: “It doesn’t need to be said.” Unspoken or not, that’s the motivation for Penske’s charges in all three series, including the IndyCar race that’s sharing the bill in a crossover weekend between the two sanctioning bodies.
“I mean there’s no denying there’s some extra significance for winning at Indy for Roger, probably now more than ever in the history of his race team that that has some significance,” Cindric says. “So proud to be able to carry that flag, proud to be able to have a shot to do that. … So nothing would be cooler than seeing all three races swept by Team Penske race cars. We’ve got a shot to do it, and I guess (Chip) Ganassi would be the only other team with that option so it’d be pretty cool to see it all happen, but I think Ryan said it best. It doesn’t need to be said, but it’s important to go out and win at Indy.”