Hochman: The son finally rises. Austin Cindric, son of Team Penske boss, wins STL's NASCAR race (2024)

Tim Cindric is a rather proud papa.

His son won Sunday’s NASCAR race just outside of St. Louis, the Enjoy Illinois 300.

Tim Cindric is a rather relieved boss.

His employee — who hadn’t finished first in 85 races — won the Enjoy Illinois 300.

A fascinating dynamic played out Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway — and not just in the final laps of a wild race. As Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney ran out of gas, Team Penske’s Austin Cindric zoomed by ... all the way to victory lane.

Austin Cindric, the son of Team Penske’s president, became the team’s unexpected winner Sunday.

Austin hadn’t won a NASCAR race since the first race of 2022 — the Daytona 500. So you can imagine the hype for a driver who won Daytona at age 23 — and the ensuing skepticism and criticism about that same driver failing to win again.

“I just talked to his dad — his dad was overjoyed,” said Walter Czarnecki, executive vice president of Penske Corp. “I was with his father the last two days at our (IndyCar) race in Detroit. ... I called him (and we talked about) how important (the win) is to him. I mean, there may be an extra measure of pressure on Austin, frankly, because his father has given him the responsibility for our race team operations. But I can tell you: Austin’s a driver; his dad is a manager. In fact, he probably holds Austin to a little bit higher standard than everybody else. So again, this is a great day for Austin for his family.”

The bespectacled Austin explained, with Sunday’s trophy by his side, that while he doesn’t “believe in juju or whatever, (my dad) and I are both pretty convinced that we both can’t have good days at the racetrack. Like, if the IndyCar has a good day, the NASCAR doesn’t. It’s just kind of this conspiracy theory that lives with us. And at the IndyCar race today, they had a really bad race. Just had everything go wrong. And yeah, we’re still proving that theory correct. Because yeah, I can’t think of a better day for us and the No. 2 car.”

Cindric will now be in the NASCAR Cup series playoffs in September. It’s really crazy how fate can change within a couple hours, right? But to Cindric’s credit, he did finish second in Saturday’s qualifying (Michael McDowell, who won the pole, finished 25th). And clearly Cindric raced well enough to be in contention in the end.

But 0 for 85 loomed.

If Cindric had gone winless in 2024, would his father have fired him? We’ll never know. But it’s sure a crazy storyline.

Stewart-Haas Racing is closing at the end of the season, so multiple drivers will be “free agents” for 2025. And Austin Cindric is one of a handful of drivers who work for family member, so he wasn’t singled out here, but Stewart-Haas driver Josh Berry gave an ear-catching quote to reporters Saturday: “From as far as I can remember, I’ve had to race for a job, right? My dad doesn’t pay for me to race. Like, I’ve had to work for every opportunity I’ve got. ... I’m going keep racing hard and fighting and doing everything I can to stay racing at this level.”

Austin Cindric was humble and likable upon victory. He admitted he had so many emotions, well, racing. He was afraid he’d fall off his car roof during the celebration. And afterward, he bluntly said that he demands excellence from himself — and doesn’t need a team meeting to reinforce that.

And on a sunny Sunday at the track, Austin spoke to his parents by phone from victory lane.

“He’s my dad. I love the guy,” Austin said. “It’s maybe not the strangest it’s ever been, but at Xfinity he could kind of avoid me and just kind of let me and my team do our thing. He’s in all of our meetings now. Our goals are the exact same as far as what makes this team great. I can’t think of a better leader for our team — I’ve been able to see it firsthand. The difference that he makes. I’m proud to be able to watch that, grow up around that and proud to be his son.”

Tim Cindric, who comes from a racing family and married into a racing family, has put together an illustrious racing resume of his own, first with Team Rahal, then with Team Penske. And as we know, he also works extremely close with the IndyCar side and Josef Newgarden (who has won multiple big races at WWTR). Tim Cindric is also coming off a two-week suspension for overseeing the cars that had illegal software implemented in them.

He returned to work this very weekend in Detroit.

And he’ll celebrate this week with his son and their team.

“Gosh, he was fast today,” Blaney said from just outside the track after his devastating finish. “I don’t know if I would have passed him if we didn’t jump on the pit stop, really. I mean, it was all I had just keep up with them before the pit stop. They were great. So yeah, happy for that team. I mean obviously bummed for us. The (hits) keep coming here this past month. Hopefully it’ll straighten itself out. Just proud of the effort. You know, we thought we had more fuel than what we did. ... But proud of Team Penske today. “