TALLADEGA, AL. - Austin Cindric came out with the lead following a late-race green flag pit cycle and was able to outduel and nip fellow Ford driver Ryan Preece at the finish line to win Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Cindric and Preece exchanged taking the lead from each other five times over the final seven laps with Cindric leading the inside lane and Preece the outside.
Cindric, who led five times for seven laps, ended up winning by .022 seconds. Following the race, Preece and Joey Logano were both disqualified in post-race inspection for spoiler infractions. That meant Noah Gragson went from sixth to fourth in the final results.
The win is Ford’s second of the season and is the 11th victory for Team Penske at Talladega since 2014.
Logano led the second-most laps on the day with 24 and crossed the finish line fifth before his disqualification sent him back to 39th. The win marked the 200th Cup Series points victory for Roush Yates Engines since opening their doors in 2004. It’s also the 743rd overall triumph for Ford in NASCAR’s top series.
The Cup circuit continues at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 4 at 3:30p.m. ET. The race can be seen on FS1 or listened to on the Performance Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
NCS RACE TOP-10 OFFICIAL FINISHERS
1st – Austin Cindric
2nd – Kyle Larson
3rd – William Byron
4th – Noah Gragson
5th – Chase Elliott
6th – Carson Hocevar
7th – Alex Bowman
8th – Bubba Wallace
9th – Daniel Suarez
10th – Austin Dillon
REMAINING FORD FINISHERS
13th – Cole Custer
16th – Todd Gilliland
19th – Zane Smith
26th – Josh Berry
31st – Cody Ware
34th – Chris Buescher
36th – Brad Keselowski
37th – Ryan Blaney
38th – Ryan Preece
39th – Joey Logano
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Menards/Quaker State Ford Mustang Dark Horse – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW:
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN AS A TEAM LIKE THIS?
“It takes everything and we’ve had it so many races here and you’ve got to have a little bit more. I’m just so proud of everybody on this race team. Team Penske, the entire shop deserves wins at these racetracks with how fast our race cars are and I’m just so proud to be able to win for John Menard and the Menards team – to get this yellow car in Victory Lane and get in the playoffs.”
WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND ON THOSE FINAL LAPS?
“You’re waiting for it to go wrong, but you’ve got to stay in the zone. There are so many times at the end I was just focused on the feedback Doug Campbell was giving me and what I knew about our car and maybe other cars I observed throughout the field today, so just an absolutely fantastic job by everybody involved.”
DESCRIBE THE EMOTION FOR TEAM PENSKE TODAY?
“We’re gonna celebrate this one at the shop. The guys really deserve it and I couldn’t be happier.”
YOU RAN IT OUT OF GAS GOING AROUND CELEBRATING?
“I figured I’d do the full lap. Sometimes guys do the half lap, but you never know when you’re gonna win these races again. I’m not saying we can’t do it, but you’ve got to appreciate it and have a moment by myself there with the race car and prove how good we got that cycle down. It was really cool.”
NOAH GRAGSON, No. 4 Rural King Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“We were in the third row on the outside and was trying to keep Cindric out front and keep the outside lane that I was in from getting there and then the 60 was able to pull up and we had two Fords out front. I’m happy for Ford and Penske for the win, but this is a good reset and good points today after the first 10 races of the season. We haven’t had the results we want, so it’s a good reset after the off weekend and a good way to start off the next part of the season.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
YOU GOT BOXED IN AT THE END.
“Yeah, it’s all about the cycle and then once it got two-by-two there you’re kind of there just watching it all happen in front of you and you really don’t play much of a part. You just hope that your lane clears enough to where you can possibly make a move, but there are no lanes to make a move there. We just got beat on the cycle there. I’m not even really sure exactly how yet. I have to go back and look at it, but, overall, it was a solid day for the Shell/Pennzoil Ford. We almost had a stage win and a top five, so I can’t be too frustrated with that I guess.”
YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN SO CLOSE. HOW NICE TO SEE A TEAMMATE IN VICTORY LANE?
“It’s about time one of us wins these things. You think about the amount of laps led by Team Penske and Ford in general and we just haven’t been able to close, so to see a couple Fords there on the front row duking it out, I wish one of them was me in a selfish way, but it’s also good to see those guys running up there and being able to click one off for Penske.”
CODY WARE, No. 51 Arby’s/AC Barbeque Sauce Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“I think that today we showed from green flag to checkered flag that we were a race-winning contender today. I’m really proud of the pit crew and the road crew and everybody back at the shop for building a super fast Arby’s Barbeque Ford Mustang. I’m really dejected with how the day ended. I sped leaving pit road, but we also ran out of fuel, too, so our fate was kind of sealed after that last pit stop no matter what. I’ll work on the things I need to work on and I know the team is going to work on the things they need to work on and we just need to move forward knowing that we can do this. We just have to keep digging.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 Kroger/Celsius Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“We did all we could. I felt like we executed Stage Three exactly like we needed to. We came out in the front of our group and worked our way through that traffic. We had the opportunity to get to the top lane and then from there it was just managing those cars behind us and not giving up what we gained. I’m really proud of everybody at RFK for this race car. I’m just really super appreciative from Jack, Brad, the Fenway Group for this opportunity. Honestly, without Kroger and BAM and Celsius and a lot of the other partners today, I’d probably be back in Connecticut. I’m really excited about the rest of this year. It’s a great day, but I wanted to win.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“It was just a stack of guys trying to come to pit road as fast as they could and we were kind of the ham in the sandwich that got squeezed. I waved down the backstretch to let everybody know I was gonna pit and I came off of four and everybody was so tight behind me that I didn’t even have a chance to turn left. I hate that it ruined not just our day, but several other people’s day. I don’t think I could do anything different.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
“I just got hit from behind. I didn’t really have a chance to do anything and got turned and wrecked our race car and a few others. That really stinks but that’s the way it’s been.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“We just broke too many pieces in the right-rear. That took all the damage. The right-rear wheel and it broke everything. We couldn’t fix it, unfortunately, but I don’t really know. I kind of saw a little bit of a replay. It looked like a group of guys trying to get to pit road and maybe some guys not knowing that they were coming to pit road and not giving them any room. I saw the 8 and 6 kind of get hooked together and they were going up the track, so I kind of picked the bottom and tried to get out of there and I think they clipped someone outside of them and the 6 came back into me and I got clipped in the right-rear. Oh gosh, man, another DNF. It just sucks. Just when we were kind of getting our momentum and didn’t even get to race today. We’ll just move on to Texas.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Travel Centers of America Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
“Everything was great out the windshield. I have no clue what happened yet. I imagine it was a bad push. That’s all it can really be. I know we’re all going for it there at the end. We’re in a great spot with our Travel Centers Ford Mustang. We had our teammate behind us. We had fuel to go wide-open and not worry about it all the way to the end of that stage and it certainly didn’t work out. I don’t know what happened at this point. I’m assuming we were just two-wide. I have no clue to really say, but we had worked really well with Preece early on in the race and had been really smart about how we linked up and got to pushing and it worked really well for us. We were right there off the corner, just kind of backing up to him to receive that first big push down the back and just seen the 20 come across the nose. Until I dive into it, I don’t know anything else yet.”
NASCAR XFINITY SERIES (April 26 – Talladega)
- Harrison Burton led Ford with an eighth-place finish on Saturday at Talladega.
- Sheldon Creed also ended up in the top 10, finishing ninth.
- Sam Mayer is the top Ford driver in the point standings (3rd) while Sheldon Creed is 10th, Ryan Sieg 11th and Burton 12th.
- The series continues on Saturday, May 3 at Texas Motor Speedway (2 p.m., CW, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
