FORT WORTH, Texas — Austin Cindric will start on the second row in Sunday’s NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway after a week of celebrating a win at Alabma’s Talladega Superspeedway — and a lot of attention paid to an expletive-laden car radio rant directed toward him by his own teammate during what turned out to be Team Penske’s first Cup Series win of the season.
There also was the conversation with that same teammate, Joey Logano. The reigning Cup Series champion was furious midway through last weekend’s race when he didn’t get the help he needed in his No. 22 Ford from Cindric, which allowed rival Toyota driver Bubba Wallace of 23X Racing to win the second stage and earn valuable bonus points.
“Definitely needed, right? I mean, I think you’ve got to talk about that,” Cindric said Saturday. “You’ve got to talk about what happened on track. I think that’s a lot more of the substance of the conversation.
“I feel like I’ve got pretty thick skin, and I also feel like I know Joey fairly well, so I’m not overly concerned or have too many emotions at all about what was said. But I think for us, sorting out where we both stood on track and what we can do in the future to be better there and capitalize on those opportunities (was important).”
Their first opportunity to work better together comes Sunday at Texas, the 1 1/2-mile quad-oval where Cindric qualified third Satrday for what will be the 11th points race of the season.