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Cindric fastest at Road America "but nothing's guaranteed"

Reigning Xfinity Series champion Austin Cindric has had a stellar start to the 2021 season but it’s lacked one surprising thing – a road course victory.

Austin Cindric, Team Penske, Ford Mustang Menards / Richmond

Austin Cindric, Team Penske, Ford Mustang Menards / Richmond

Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

Cindric, 22, has an extensive background in sports car racing and four of his first seven career Xfinity wins have come on road courses.

He will have two chances to check that box this weekend as he’s entered in both Saturday’s Xfinity race and Sunday’s Cup race at Road America.

So far this season, Cindric has four wins in the Xfinity Series – he had six all of last year – but all four have come on oval tracks.

Three of the next five races on the Xfinity schedule take place on road courses offering a prime opportunity for Cindric to pad his already impressive pre-playoff statistics.

“Obviously, we won the race here last year but nothing’s guaranteed,” Cindric said. “The field this season at this race is pretty stacked, similar to Circuit of the Americas, where normally if you get out of sequence you can kind of recover to the top-five.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge (Saturday) especially if you loose track position at a place that is this narrow. We had speed today but that doesn’t mean anything for tomorrow.”

In the incident-marred practice session Friday at the 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course, Cindric completed eight laps and easily topped the speed chart with an average lap at 107.869 mph. he was more than eight-tenths of a second faster than second-place Jeb Burton (107.086 mph).

Justin Allgaier ended up third, A.J. Allmendinger was fourth and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top-five. Qualifying is scheduled for 11:35 a.m. ET Saturday.

Cindric, like many others Friday, had a difficult time determining how well they will perform in race conditions because of the two long stoppages in practice for incidents on the track.

“I think I would have a really good idea if we had five more minutes,” he said. “I also think everybody would probably say the same but I actually do mean that.

“We did get quite a few changes in during the time that we had. I was surprised we had so many yellows but sometimes, that’s how it goes.”

Still, Cindric doesn’t feel Saturday’s Xfinity race should be a chaotic one.

“It normally isn’t here. You usually get some long runs,” he said. “I will say out of anywhere we go to, the ‘cautions breed cautions’ mantra definitely plays into effect here.

“It is pretty narrow, it’s easy to make mistakes, there are lots of stack ups on restarts and you usually see a lot of accidents.”

Cla # Driver Manufacturer Laps Time Gap Interval Mph
1 22 United States Austin Cindric Ford 8 2'15.096     106.964
2 10 United States Jeb Burton Chevrolet 13 2'16.084 0.988 0.988 106.187
3 7 United States Justin Allgaier Chevrolet 10 2'16.170 1.074 0.086 106.120
4 16 United States A.J. Allmendinger Chevrolet 8 2'16.189 1.093 0.019 106.105
5 18 United States Daniel Hemric Toyota 10 2'16.961 1.865 0.772 105.507
6 81 Ty Gibbs Toyota 10 2'17.086 1.990 0.125 105.411
7 54 United States Kyle Busch Toyota 11 2'17.502 2.406 0.416 105.092
8 11 United States Justin Haley Chevrolet 10 2'17.599 2.503 0.097 105.018
9 36 Canada Alex Labbé Chevrolet 8 2'17.635 2.539 0.036 104.991
10 51 United States Jeremy Clements Chevrolet 7 2'17.921 2.825 0.286 104.773
11 9 United States Noah Gragson Chevrolet 2 2'18.078 2.982 0.157 104.654
12 90 Preston Pardus Chevrolet 8 2'18.204 3.108 0.126 104.558
13 5 United States Andy Lally Chevrolet 7 2'18.294 3.198 0.090 104.490
14 48 United States Jade Buford Chevrolet 10 2'18.345 3.249 0.051 104.452
15 20 United States Harrison Burton Toyota 10 2'18.429 3.333 0.084 104.389
16 2 United States Myatt Snider Chevrolet 12 2'18.464 3.368 0.035 104.362
17 6 United States Spencer Pumpelly Chevrolet 11 2'18.505 3.409 0.041 104.331
18 78 United States Ryan Ellis Chevrolet 7 2'18.654 3.558 0.149 104.219
19 31 United States Kaz Grala Chevrolet 11 2'18.677 3.581 0.023 104.202
20 66 Matt Jaskol Toyota 10 2'18.772 3.676 0.095 104.131
21 19 United States Brandon Jones Toyota 9 2'18.812 3.716 0.040 104.101
22 99 United States Kevin Harvick Toyota 13 2'18.847 3.751 0.035 104.074
23 44 United States Tommy Joe Martins Chevrolet 8 2'19.058 3.962 0.211 103.916
24 47 United States Kyle Weatherman Chevrolet 6 2'19.059 3.963 0.001 103.916
25 07 United States Josh Bilicki Chevrolet 2 2'19.164 4.068 0.105 103.837
26 39 United States Ryan Sieg Chevrolet 8 2'19.239 4.143 0.075 103.781
27 98 Riley Herbst Ford 5 2'19.308 4.212 0.069 103.730
28 61 United States Boris Said Toyota 8 2'19.329 4.233 0.021 103.714
29 17 United States Cody Ware Chevrolet 10 2'19.479 4.383 0.150 103.603
30 02 United States Brett Moffitt Chevrolet 10 2'19.563 4.467 0.084 103.540
31 8 Sam Mayer Chevrolet 11 2'19.712 4.616 0.149 103.430
32 1 United States Michael Annett Chevrolet 10 2'19.727 4.631 0.015 103.419
33 92 United States Josh Williams Chevrolet 7 2'19.727 4.631 0.000 103.419
34 42 United States Carl Long Toyota 9 2'20.117 5.021 0.390 103.131
35 68 United States Brandon Brown Chevrolet 9 2'20.427 5.331 0.310 102.903
36 26 United States Kris Wright Toyota 10 2'20.555 5.459 0.128 102.810
37 13 United States Stephen Leicht Toyota 9 2'20.817 5.721 0.262 102.618
38 52 United States Gray Gaulding Chevrolet 10 2'20.870 5.774 0.053 102.580
39 4 United States Landon Cassill Chevrolet 6 2'21.698 6.602 0.828 101.980
40 0 United States Jeffrey Earnhardt Chevrolet 11 2'22.004 6.908 0.306 101.761
41 74 United States Bayley Currey Chevrolet 8 2'22.011 6.915 0.007 101.755
42 15 Colby Howard Chevrolet 9 2'24.275 9.179 2.264 100.159
43 23 United States Natalie Decker Chevrolet 9 2'30.680 15.584 6.405 95.901

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