Team Penske stole the headlines Sunday afternoon (Sept. 9) at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Joey Logano captured the victory. Ryan Blaney made a huge rally in the last 50 laps to rebound from a crash and finish third. Their teammate, Austin Cindric, had a great day of his own scoring 19 stage points, including the stage two win, on the way to a 10th-place finish.
That increased Cindric’s advantage on the cut line from two to 27 points.
It was not a surprise to see Cindric run well at Atlanta. The Penske cars have been fast on drafting tracks for years, a strength that Cindric capitalized on right away when he won the Daytona 500 as a rookie in 2022. Additionally, in the six NASCAR Cup Series races with Atlanta’s current configuration, Cindric has finished worse than 12th only once and led laps five times. Even though the new style of racing at Atlanta can be unpredictable, the No. 2 was a good bet to have a strong start to the playoffs.
On the other hand, it is understandable why fans may have overlooked Cindric going into the postseason.
Most weeks this season, he has not matched the pace of his more experienced teammates. Remember that Cindric’s second win, earlier this year at World Wide Technology Raceway, came when Christopher Bell experienced engine troubles in the closing laps, followed by Blaney running out of fuel in sight of the white flag.
Cindric led 53 laps in that race and ran well overall, but that win came largely through the misfortune of other drivers. Without that victory, he would have been left out of the playoffs.
Three months later, Cindric is in a better position to compete. A 27-point cushion with two races to go is not foolproof, but it gives the No. 2 team a good chance to avoid the early elimination that some fans predicted for them. So, if Cindric can make it through the first round of the postseason, how far could he realistically go?
Next up for the Cup Series is Watkins Glen International, which will host a playoff race for the first time. A trip to The Glen is good news for Cindric, who comes from a road course background and won a NASCAR Xfinity Series race there in 2019. His two Cup Series races there have resulted in finishes of 13th and 16th. It is too small a sample size to glean much information, except that Cindric should at least be able to stay out of trouble.
Perhaps a better clue is Cindric’s previous road course finishes this season: 15th on the streets of Chicago, 22nd at Sonoma Raceway, and 18th at Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
Those are all middling results, a trend that last season also reflected. Cindric scored top 10s at Chicago and COTA in 2023, but the rest of his road course finishes were all in the 15th-25th range. Going back further, Cindric earned top fives at Sonoma and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in 2022, but overall he has not had the same rate of success on road courses that he had in the Xfinity Series. He probably will not storm to the front of the field at Watkins Glen as he did at Atlanta, but this week’s race should not be troublesome for the No. 2 team.
Bristol Motor Speedway, on the other hand, could be a problem for Cindric.
He has only run three Cup Series events on the regular, concrete version of Bristol, so the sample size is once again small. However, in those three races, Cindric has finished outside the top 30 twice and has not finished better than 20th. He did fine at Bristol in the Xfinity Series, nearly winning in 2021 by sliding sideways across the finish line behind AJ Allmendinger in a spectacular finish. But the Cup Series is a whole different ballgame and Team Penske has not been fast at Bristol for several years, save select performances by Blaney.
The No. 2 team will have to approach Thunder Valley with caution and focus on protecting its points to be successful.
If Cindric advances through Bristol, things will only get tougher. Without any additional race or stage wins, he will enter the Round of 12 with eight playoff points. While he would not necessarily be buried by the competition, the drivers who would be eliminated likely have fewer playoff points than Cindric does. Since the remaining drivers will have more, the No. 2 team would probably start the second round below the cut line, and the pressure would be on to make up the points.
In this scenario, Cindric would have to have Talladega Superspeedway circled as an opportunity race. Like most drivers, he has had mixed results at Talladega, but there should be no more doubt at this point that drafting tracks play to his and Penske’s strengths.
If Cindric can have another great points day like he had on Sunday, or even survive to the finish, he will have a shot to reach the third round with a good performance at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. The biggest weak spot for the No. 2 team in the second round is Kansas Speedway, where Cindric has finished outside the top 30 for the last three races. But, significantly, Cindric has less to fear at Talladega than many of his competitors.
Advancing to the third round of the playoffs, or even the championship race, would be a very tall task for the No. 2 team.
Blaney and Logano are still the best championship bets where Penske and Ford are concerned. But oftentimes being successful in the playoffs is about maximizing the opportunities you have and performing better than expectations. Cindric did just that in race No. 1 and now he has a chance to make a deeper postseason run than most would have predicted.
It may have been an uneven regular season for the No. 2, but do not be surprised if Cindric is still standing when the dust settles after Bristol.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.