Austin Cindric Watkins Glen Media Availability

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Go Bowling at The Glen Advance | Watkins Glen International
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 2 Autotrader Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Team Penske, is coming off a 10th-place finish last Sunday after winning the second stage and moving into seventh place in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff standings. He answered questions from the media on Wednesday in advance of Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen International.

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Autotrader Ford Mustang Dark Horse – TELL US ABOUT HOW YOUR TEAM IS PREPARING FOR THIS WEEKEND? “I think it’s really cool that Watkins gets a playoff race. It’s one of the more traditional races that happens throughout the calendar and always super well attended. Having a road course race, the only one that’s been in the playoffs so far has been the Roval, and I’d say it’s pretty different than many most traditional road courses, but I would also argue that Watkins Glen is also very different compared to most traditional road courses, so it should be a fun one.”

WHERE IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL AFTER SUNDAY AND LOOKING AT YOUR POINTS SITUATION? “After the first race we got some good points and put ourselves in a reasonable position to execute the next two weeks. I don’t think it changes my job for this weekend or my outlook for this weekend. From that standpoint, I still feel fairly neutral about all of it, but we’re in a great spot due to having a fast car and a solid race.”

A FEW CHANGES TO THE TRACK IN TERMS OF RUMBLE STRIPS AND THE RACING LINE INTO TURN ONE. CAN YOU WALK US THROUGH WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AND ANTICIPATING? “The changes you described, they basically added recessed rumble strips, which like on the highway you have the little thing that buzzes when you drive over the line and it’s pretty much what those are, but they’re like on steroids, so they’re expected to try and take grip out of the car without providing a large surface, like a big curb for the cars to go over without completely killing the runoff area, so I think that’s the intention. You don’t really know how much it’s gonna limit the cars. Is it just gonna chew up tires? Is it not gonna change anything at all? I think that’s up until practice – we’ll have a pretty good read at that, but, otherwise, it’s gonna change the racing line a little bit. The intent is to not use as much of the runoff as we have in the Next Gen car at the exit of turn one. Don’t ask me why that is, it’s just kind of where it’s gone with it, whether it’s because it’s more of a momentum car or what. And then having the same thing in the carousel. I think it will limit it to the same amount. I feel like there’s a couple tenths of a second into each corner that you can gain by using a lot of the runoff, but, otherwise, I really think it will all look really similar.”

DO ANTICIPATE THINGS BEING MORE CHAOTIC? “I think with how it changes the racing, like with the runoff being kind of the preferred line, like you dive down in the apex and just kind of drift all the way out to the runoff. The outside car can play a lot of defense, where if you make it more of a tighter corner, maybe the inside car has a bit more of an advantage just getting straight drive and have a better angle up off the corner. I feel like it also gives the inside car a lot of leverage on the outside car if there’s something that’s gonna take grip away or a worse area for a car to be placed if this runoff is really difficult to drive through, then the car on the inside can probably just shove that guy into the runoff. So, I feel like there’s a Catch-22 there, but I feel like it’ll change it probably not much more than what I just described.”

WERE ALL THE CHANGES THERE WHEN YOU DID THE TEST? “The bus stop was the same as the tire test. Basically, the elimination or the flattening of the first curb entering the bus stop, so that was the same. They had like one or two rows all the way outside of turn one pretty much where you wouldn’t even drive it in the runoff, so they added more and I think they’d even add more a step after the OEM tests. I don’t have really a read on what that will be like going into the race weekend, but, otherwise, I think it’s pretty new. The one thing that we did do at the tire test is NASCAR put some cones out just to try to get a look at what not using the runoff would look like. I would say traditionally it looked like probably five years ago at Watkins Glen and every year before, but that was the intent is just to keep us more on the other side of the curb in turn one.”

DO YOU HAVE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF POINTS ABOVE THE CUT LINE YOU WOULD FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH? “I like the ADV – that points number. That looks really good. That’s my favorite number is when it has letters next to your name. Otherwise, there were guys that came in over 20 points good going into Atlanta, so I can’t say that looking that far ahead I feel like that’s overly – not optimistic – but I feel like it’s somewhat of a distraction. I think my guys did do the math like based off of the last handful of years if I finish 13th in both races, then I’m fine, which kind of makes sense anyway, but with those stages points and anything like that, but it’s not really something that I’ve really diverted a ton of focus on. We just need to go out and do our jobs this weekend and see where it falls.”

THE STRENGTH AT ATLANTA AS A WHOLE TEAM MUST GIVE EVERYONE A LOT OF CONFIDENCE. “It’s a great way to start, but it is just the start and it’s not a surprise to be able to run well on tracks like that. I’m not trying to downplay the run, but I think we all expected to be able to go out there and qualify well and have a chance at a win with all of our cars because that’s pretty much what every speedway event has been this year for our company. Like I said, I’m not trying to downplay the performance. It’s the playoffs and everything around it, but it’s important for us to capitalize on days like that, and I feel like we did a reasonable job at capitalizing on some of our strengths.”

AT WHAT POINT DURING THE WEEKEND DO YOU START KNOWING WHAT KIND OF CAR YOU HAVE? “I don’t feel like this weekend I really have points on my radar, other than how they normally would be as far as what’s the least I can do to move on in the next round. I don’t feel like that’s really ever how I think, so, otherwise, it’s very important to maximize every opportunity we have, whether if that’s through points and we don’t know if we go into Bristol – mechanical failures, tire failures, all these other things. You still want to be able to go out this weekend and give yourself as much of a cushion going into that final race if not a win, so I don’t think my mentality changes regardless of how Atlanta went.”

AS THE SPORT LOOKS AT PUTTING MORE FOCUS ON GETTING TIRES TO WEAR OUT MORE, WHAT WOULD YOU AS A DRIVER HAVE TO CHANGE AS THAT HAPPENS? “I think there’s a lot of different avenues I feel like I could go down on why tire wear either can make good racing or why drivers want it more or why maybe race fans might want it more, but at the end of the day, it does give more of an option for variance and I feel like variance is what creates racing, whether if that’s guys getting big runs off corners and passing people, or guys really struggling and falling back to others who are just getting into their strengths. It creates a more dynamic race other than just a bunch of cars going out there at the same speed. You can still have a bunch of cars going out there at the same speed with tire degradation. We see it out at the racetracks we go to on the schedule, whether it’s Darlington or Richmond or these other places that have tire wear. We do have tracks that have some tire wear, maybe not massive tire wear. I also don’t look at Watkins Glen as a very abrasive surface, so I think when we have changes that creates variance because there is a difficulty in trying to figure things out without a lot of data points, and I feel like that’s what this weekend and really next weekend at Bristol are going to be. There’s a lot of people scratching their heads on what data they want to believe and how they’re going to approach the weekend, and the more you get things refined is when the racing looks a little bit more similar and guys are a lot closer and the field is a lot closer. But as far as what I have to do behind the wheel of the car, I think it depends on what kind of falloff you’re experiencing. Is it due to heat? Is it due to actual wear in the tire? And then what about the racetrack and what about the layout of the racetrack is really causing this because I think road courses are a bit different than ovals. Imagine that your right-front and your right-rear are gonna be going through the biggest challenges at an oval racetrack, specifically the right-rear, whereas you think about a road course like how does this affect my braking? How does this affect traction? How does this affect high-speed stability? How does this affect my ability to use curbs? Because road courses are inherently you’re challenging a lot more parts of the car and tire wear can challenge a lot more of how you have to drive the car throughout the run, so it should be a very interesting weekend to see where that all kind of lands and how severe or how much it changes the strategy of the race.”

DO YOU GET A SENSE OF HOW MUCH YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO ADJUST OR CHANGE IN DRIVING AT WATKINS GLEN AS OPPOSED TO HOW YOU’VE DRIVING IT IN THE PAST? “I think since I’ve raced in a stock car around Watkins Glen, it’s kind of coming off – I think back to 2018 when I did my first Xfinity race there. It was kind of coming off a repave from a few years before, so the tires had to be a lot harder to not blister and because it is such a high-speed racetrack and as the years have kind of gone on you have some tire wear, but otherwise since we’ve started with the Next Gen car out of all the road courses you have to drive the car extremely hard. It’s like you’re hanging your tongue out every lap. I would say last year’s tire, the year before, doesn’t have a ton of lap time falloff, so you’re kind of keeping that pace the entire time, whereas when you think about having some tire fall off, you might have to prioritize some different corners on the racetrack to complement that. I’m not saying that I know what those might be, but it could definitely change where your priorities lay after your first run of practice.”

DO YOU STILL HAVE AN ADVANTAGE ON ROAD COURSES OR HAVE THE OTHER GUYS CAUGHT UP IN BEING ABLE TO RACE AT WATKINS GLEN? “I think of any road course, regardless of my experience, out of any road course on the schedule I feel like whether if it’s veteran drivers or younger drivers all have a lot of reps at Watkins Glen, and I would say it’s the most similar to an oval race just because of how high-speed the track is and somewhat one direction with the exception of the bus stop. Do I go in there thinking that I have a massive advantage over other guys? No, I don’t think so, but there’s a comfort level of driving at tracks like that for me that might not exist for other drivers, but past that I think there are some pretty talented guys in the field and road course racing has become definitely more important over the last decade in stock car racing than it has in decades prior, so I think everyone has really stepped up their game. You see that with the gap in the field. I’m sure in qualifying it will be separated by only a tenth of a second for probably 15 or 20 spots. That’s how it was last time we were there, so it should be no different. I’m not expecting a cake walk by any means.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FANS MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND WHEN YOU’RE WATCHING THE RACE ABOUT RACING AT A TRACK LIKE THAT IN THE PLAYOFFS? “If I think about just driving a track like Watkins Glen and watching it on TV or watching the onboards is that you don’t feel the sensation of speed that you do in the race car through the esses. In the Next Gen car, you’re trying to hold the thing wide-open at the top of the hill in turn three, whereas that’s kind of like a cinematic shot for the TV camera, where they’re not really even paying attention to what we’re doing, but trying to hold a car wide-open, cresting a hill at probably 130-140 miles an hour and trying to thread it between and Armco Barrier, it’s fun. It’s super on the edge. You have to relax your body because you have a tendency to tense up through those areas. It is definitely a very fast road course and that section in particular would probably catch people off guard if they sat in the passenger seat with me, or if I had one, but as far as from a driving standpoint the bus stop is probably the most unique because it’s not really a traditional corner and you have to be very careful with your car placement through there.”