LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Austin Cindric had one of the cars to beat in Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Las Vegas Speedway, but a flat tire hampered his bid and resulted in a fourth-place finish.

Cindric started second and dominated in winning Stage 1, but on lap 55 he ran over something on the racing surface that cut his left-rear tire.  He fell a lap down while limping his No. 22 Carquest Auto Parts Mustang around the 1.5-mile track, but caught a good break when caution came out just before he got to pit road.  Cindric, who led 43 laps on the day, was the first car a lap down at that point, so he was able to get back in sync with the leaders and ultimately finished Stage 2 in 10th place.

The caution that enabled Cindric to get back into contention was at the expense of fellow Ford driver Riley Herbst, who got collected when Ty Dillon got loose in front of him.  As Dillon slide to the inside, Herbst had nowhere to go and damaged the right-front nose of his Mustang to the point that he was forced to retire after running 56 laps in 40th-place.

Ryan Sieg also encountered trouble shortly after the restart as he got loose coming off turn four and ended up hitting the infield grass, which tore off the bottom half of his Mustang’s nose.  That also ended his day with Seig finishing 38th.

The NASCAR XFINITY Series continues on Saturday, March 13 at Phoenix Raceway, where the green flag is scheduled to drop at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on FS1 and MRN.

FORD FINISHING RESULTS:
4th -- Austin Cindric
38th -- Ryan Sieg
40th -- Riley Herbst

AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 22 Carquest Auto Parts Ford Mustang
WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU AND HARRISON BURTON? 
“He just threw a block on the frontstretch and at that part of the racetrack the cars really unloaded.  I was just driving hard.  At the end of the day, it was probably pretty avoidable on both parties, but obviously he was able to keep it off the wall and get a top 10.  Either way, that wasn’t really the catalyst for my day.  We cut a tire down when we were one of the best cars and it took us the entire race to get back to fourth, so we needed 100 more miles and maybe we would have had a shot with our Carquest Ford Mustang.  All good on my end, just bad luck.”

RILEY HERBST, No. 98 South Point Ford Mustang 
“It just sucks.  People spin in front of you.  It’s happened probably the last three weeks where people have started wrecking in front of me and there’s no place for me to go, so something has got to change.  This is an absolute shame.”

THIS IS YOUR HOMETOWN.  HOW MUCH WERE YOU REALLY WANTING TO PERFORM HERE TODAY?  
“Not just that, I just wanted to get a good race.  Last week we got fenced.  The week before people wrecked in front of us just like this week and it’s just a shame.  I just want to run a full race without somebody wrecking in front of me.”