Austin Cindric was candid in speaking with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the latest episode of the Dale Jr. Download regarding the challenges the NextGen car presents.
The No. 2 wheelman was victorious over the weekend in Illinois, but he dove into some of the issues drivers face nowadays behind the wheel, including the wealth of access each driver has at their disposal, and how it’s not always as easy as doing what the data tells you to do week-in and week-out.
“Yeah, I would say, for every member on on the team, whether that’s crew chiefs, engineers, drivers, mechanics, it’s the conversation of, ‘Well, everybody’s got the same stuff. You have the same thing he has,’ whether that’s with your teammates, coming with the same setup, or guys we’re racing against, that are running well and we aren’t. You know, that conversation makes it very difficult to find — you think it would make it easier to find the problem, but it makes it harder to solve the problem,” Cindric explained. “Because, with the previous generation cars, you had a problem, you’re just gonna go, ‘Forget, everything else. We’re just gonna come up with the best idea and fix it, and that’s gonna make us better.’ You know, and that’s, it’s much easier to just go, ‘Yup, we’re gonna look at ourselves. We’re gonna make this solution, and we’re gonna go see how good it is.’ And it’s not, it’s not that easy to just go, ‘Yup, we’re going to look at ourselves, and we’re going to make a decision, and this is going to make us better, because we’ve done the research on why.’
“It’s a lot harder to like, kind of point the finger, of where those things are. Because like, if I could drive deeper into the corner, I would. If I could get on the gas sooner, I would. Like that’s, those are the types of things. But also, what is correct? What is right? What is, why things are the way they are? Why is fast, fast? And from a driver’s perspective, or data perspective, of trying to understand those things, you know, we have all the resources, you know, from a driver standpoint, as you possibly could hope. In other forms of motorsports, like I talked to IndyCar drivers, you know, guys with in Formula 1 industry. The fact that I have, you know, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson’s driver data. That sounds like gold, when you tell it to these guys. The fact that I have that and can’t beat them every week makes me, you know, talking to them, makes me feel like I’m just not good enough. So it’s it’s a wild thing that we have access to, you know, in comparison, and it makes it, you know, it can be that much more draining, honestly, when you have all that information and you’re still not able to produce.”
Alas, it might be a struggle for Cindric and many other drivers at time, but that’s what makes weekends where you get to victory lane so rewarding in the end.
“When you have weekends like this weekend, if I’m being $100 Dale, this was the easiest race I’ve run all year,” Cindric told Earnhardt Jr. “Honestly. There are cars that existed in that race that I never saw. Like, I usually see the entire field. Like, it’s either in front of you, behind me, I’m passing, it’s passing me like, you know, it’s crazy in the middle of the field, in the Cup Series, and it’s so hard. You work that hard because it is this glorious utopia in the top three, the top five, that you’re hoping to find, because it makes what my spotter is telling me, it makes the information the guys at the shop are looking at that much simpler, to be able to go out there and absolutely nail it.
“I feel like that’s what our team was able to do, and I’m proud of that we were prepared to do that, on any really any given weekend, but but especially this weekend.”
While SMT Data wasn’t available to the drivers like it is now during Earnhardt Jr.’s days in the Cup Series, he compared Cindric’s struggles to the partnership Hendrick Motorsports had with Stewart-Haas Racing back in the day, explaining how doing what works for another driver isn’t the simple solution it sounds like.
“Every time we hear about listening to you know, drivers inputs, and all the SMT data, it reminds me of, I think it was around 2014 or 2015, 2014 probably, where we had a partnership with Stewart-Haas Racing, and we could see everything that [Kevin] Harvick was doing with Rodney Childers,” Earnhardt Jr. added. “They came onto the scene, they were hauling ass everywhere. Harvick ran part-throttle through the turns at Charlotte and other places, where you would never — you lift all the way out of the gas, back in the gas. He never came all the way off throttle. We could not figure out like, what he was doing, and how. They were like, ‘Just do that. Drive it that way.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, my car will plow into the fence if I don’t lift all the way out of gas.’ And I was like, there’s something else going on that we don’t have, that they are doing. So I couldn’t imagine being a driver today.
“I thought about this for you guys, and I don’t envy having — your crew having all — your crew chief, engineer saying, ‘Here’s your teammates inputs, do that. That’s faster, his car is faster. You have the same car, go do what he’s doing.’ I’d be like, ‘It’s not that simple.’ So I’m surprised you guys are able to keep your composure, because I imagine — maybe sometimes in the hauler, you know, behind closed doors, it gets a little heated, when you’re trying to debate you know, what your teammates are doing, and what you’re trying to do with the car.”
Regardless, Austin Cindric was able to stay calm through the noise, and win at Illinois over the weekend. He’s now locked into the playoffs, and will be looking to make a deeper run than he made in 2022, the last time he won a race.
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