Race Weekend Central

Austin Cindric Adds 3 Races to Truck Season Schedule

Coming off a victory in the NASCAR Pro Series East race at Watkins Glen International, Austin Cindric will attempt to make his 2016 Camping World Truck Series debut at Bristol Motor Speedway on Aug. 17.

Cindric, 17, was slated to compete at Dover in May, but weather moved into the area canceling qualifying, causing the Brad Keselowski Racing team to miss the race due to owner’s points.

Cindric will drive the No. 2, a third truck for the BKR team.

“I’m really grateful to have the opportunity to run three more races with Brad Keselowski Racing at three tracks that are so diverse,” Cindric said in a team press release. “I’m definitely being thrown into the deep end of the pool again going into Bristol. The most important thing I need right now is laps under my belt.  The team has a great history at Bristol and excellent knowledge of that track.”

BKR has won back-to-back races at Bristol, with team owner Brad Keselowski picking up his first career Truck Series victory in 2014 and Ryan Blaney coming off a victory last season.

Cindric has competed in two K&N Pro East Series races this season. Along with the dominating victory last weekend at Watkins Glen, leading all 41 laps, he led 29 laps at VIR en route to a debut victory.

He will also race at Mosport in Canada and Talladega in late October.

“It’s unfortunate Austin wasn’t able to test at Bristol because that’s such a challenging race track and I know how much he was looking forward to testing at a track prior to going to one of these NCWTS races,” BKR General Manager Jeremy Thompson said in the press release.  “Austin is a talented driver and he’s exceeded our expectations every time he’s been in our trucks.  Our main objective at Bristol is for Austin to run as many laps as possible and learn as much as he can.”

Last season Cindric made his Truck Series debut at Martinsville, starting 14th, finishing 25th. Two weeks later he went to Phoenix and finished a career-high 14th.

“From what I understand, Dover is actually like a bigger version of Bristol, so that gives me a little bit of confidence, especially with how quickly we got up to speed and how fast our Ford F-150 was there,” Cindric said.  “I’ve learned a lot more about how to drive a truck and a stock car since my past experience at Phoenix and Dover.  We’ll just go to Bristol and be a sponge.”

About the author

Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.

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Biff Baynehouse

Interesting! Best wishes to AC & BKR! ….but Im not sure I like how Austin Theriault has been back-handed back into the K&N minors by this team. I don’t feel like the kid was afforded a proper chance in CWT. Last season, he was accidentally driven into a concrete wall at high speed by his teammate at LV, which broke his back & caused him to miss the 2nd 1/2 of the ’15 season. Then BKR responds by signing Hemric, who prances in with sponsor money, to take AT’s seat in ’16?
Now this with AC? Hmp! Smh… Racing, like life, ain’t fair!

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