By: Ashley McCubbin

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and Austin Cindric is hoping that is the case in a good way.

After all the hype about hope for a good campaign after watching his teammate Ryan Blaney win the NASCAR Cup Series Championship last season, the beginning of the year has not gone as he would have hoped. Cindric has only scored a single top-20 finish, with a fourth at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

He is not the only one within Team Penske that you could say is suffering the same fate, as Joey Logano only has a single top-20, with a ninth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Alternatively, Blaney has not slowed down since 2023 with three top-five’s.

Despite the numbers not being on the board as Cindric would have hoped, he still feels confident in the team, feeling as though Daytona and Atlanta were “two absolute stand out events.”

“I think all three of our cars were probably the best in the field, the class of the field, and obviously frustrating not to have any of us win those races, but I think it was an A+ for those events,” he told NEWS FROM THE PITS. “I think the last three weeks have just been learning, whether that’s offset with the Dark Horse Ford Mustang, to figure out where we’ve made gains or where we’re different as well as just kind of getting started off into the season. Obviously, like I’ve said before in here, the last two weeks have just been kind of a mess regardless of anything that we’ve really done outside of our preparation, so it’s a bit difficult to get a read, but it’s certainly been interesting.

“Obviously, the Toyotas and specifically the Gibbs cars have been pretty strong on the short tracks so far this year, so I think that’s a pretty easy stand out to make, but otherwise, it’s early days.”

Fortunately, this weekend in Texas could be the perfect spot for Cindric and Team Penske to turn things around as he has been fast at Circuit of the Americas previously, scoring back-to-back top-10’s with a sixth last season.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for us to kind of get back on track and hit the reset button,” he commented. “The last couple of weeks have been pretty funky with getting knocked out the first couple of laps at Phoenix and then obviously last week’s craziness and all the tire failures that we experienced, so I’m kind of excited to just get back going and hopefully a lot of green flag running. It’s been a place that we’ve had some good pace. We obviously have to adapt to the new package, but I’m excited to go hit the reset button and get after it.”

Being the first road course on the schedule for the season, the driver of the No. 2 Ford says it has a bit of everything compared to the rest.

“Every type of corner imaginable – high speed, low speed, lefts and rights, braking zones, medium speed corners,” he commented. “You go through the whole gearbox. There is some tire wear. We’ve got some patches in some places, but if anything that will make the tire wear maybe a little bit less, and I also don’t’ feel like this tire necessarily wears anymore than any of the rest, but it’s somewhat of an abrasive racetrack, so past that it’s just got everything in it and you just have to have the complete picture to be competitive there.”