NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: CHAMPIONSHIP

November 6, 2021

A.J. Allmendinger

Austin Cindric

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We will start our post-race press conference here from the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship. We are with Austin Cindric and A.J. Allmendinger. We'll go right to questions.

Q. A.J., you apologized on your NBC interview for the caution with 20 to go. Can you elaborate on why that was on the front of your mind.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: Because I'm pretty sure he had a massive lead. We never had the speed all day to run with him or Daniel. I thought at the end of the day you're still trying to get the best finish. We were going to run fifth or sixth.

We had a vibration start with, I don't know, 40 to go, maybe a little bit more than that, I'm not sure when we went back to green. Kept trying to figure out what it was. I kept asking if it was a loose wheel. They kept telling me no, we're positive we got 'em all.

At that moment I decided that I didn't think that was true. I was literally about to come down, turn in, go to pit road, felt like there was nothing on the right rear and I spun out. I don't want to be the storyline like that, especially when he's got a lead and deserving to probably go win another one.

At that point you don't know if a caution is going to come out anyway. I had nothing to gain. I just didn't want to be a part of the storyline.

It wasn't on purpose. At the end of the day, that's not what I wanted to happen. It deserved to play out however it was supposed to play out. That's why I apologized. It pissed me off because we had no lug nuts on the right rear, about to fall off. Pissed me off that it caused a yellow that I didn't want to have happen. It didn't help me and it cost him a headache.

Q. Once the caution did come out, a couple more cautions along the way, how confident were you on the short runs you would be able to hold off the guys behind you?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I felt like the launch was going to be really important during most of those caution laps. My stress level was relegated to the launch. I feel like I played that really well tonight.

I felt like I probably played it better tonight than I probably ever have. So I'm proud of that.

Just the reason being, usually Phoenix has been a racetrack that's either bottom dominant or, since we've had the tracks compound, top dominant. The moment you can enter equal with somebody in whatever the preferred lane is, you can clear 'em. I feel like I may have pioneered a little bit too soon as far as how powerful the bottom can still be on restarts.

I felt like it was important to do that, to get the track position. Still worked out. Obviously just didn't have enough of a margin entering turn three on the last lap.

Q. Austin, what did you think of the move Hemric pulled on you? Would you have done the same thing?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I mean, in Daniel's shoes, that's his moment, that's his shot. I don't think it was by any means outlandish or dirty. I've seen worse from this guy (smiling).

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: I was just watching your truck race at Mosport. That's why. I learned from that.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: Do you remember the first race I did at Mosport? I got put in the tires by Daniel.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: No, I'm too old to remember that. I can't remember that far back.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I remember that. Anyway. I knew the bump was coming for sure. Got a bump, that's all she wrote.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: Technically I hit you wheel-to-wheel at least. He hit you from behind.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: Covered all four corners of my race car at this point.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: At least I was even with it.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I love you.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: You did the Daniel move in Mosport. I at least hit you wheel-to-wheel.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: This is true (smiling).

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: Just trying to get the facts straight. That's all I had tonight, trying to get the facts straight.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: Making your nights better by giving me shit up here, then I'm happy for it.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: This might be the last time. You're a big Cup guy now.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: You get to play around with me for 20th for like half the races.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: That's true, that's true.

Q. (No microphone.)

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: You got sponsors lined up already? Are they signed?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I'm sure I will struggle at some point in my rookie season. If anyone in here doesn't believe that, then thank you for the confidence.

Q. Austin, you've developed yourself as a champion in this series, frontrunner. How much are you going to miss this series?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I'm certainly going to miss it. I think I've made a good home as far as not just the people on my race team, but the people in the garage area. The reason why I feel that way is because I went from in 2018 to being probably the guy that everyone stared at and kind of tried to figure out why I was there, in some cases I probably agree with you. In some cases I feel like I came to the series probably a year too early. That's racing. You can't choose your opportunities when they happen.

I've probably developed and grown more and gained more respect probably coming from that point to obviously where I'm at now. It obviously is a bit poetic that we still won the Owners' Championship. I know that's a very great accomplishment. Obviously it showcases what we've been able to do all season. Not what we came here for today.

Q. A.J., there's a good chance you would be back here in this race next year competing for the championship. What do you feel like the team needs to improve on?

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: I'm going to see if I can stop giving Austin shit over here and see if I can sweet talk him for some notes around this place --

AUSTIN CINDRIC: You're going to get your teammate next year --

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: That's true, I know. I don't even have to worry about being the big dog on the team.

This is part of it. Of course we would have liked to come here and contended more throughout the course of the race. I thought we did a good job to get inside kind of the top five, top six, kind of run at the tail end of what I call -- it looked like about five or six of us that were gone from the field. We at least got to the tail end of it.

I think I would have been a little better the last run before the loose wheel. At the end of the day we could have finished around fourth or fifth. This is a racetrack that I knew heading into it, it wasn't my best racetrack from the spring. It's not been Kaulig Racing's best racetrack as a whole.

Part of it is learning. Of course you'd love to cap off such a dream come true season with a shot to win the championship, at least contending for it. We knew Austin was going to be really tough, the 18 was going to be tough.

We'll learn from it. The good thing is, I have confidence in Kaulig Racing that we can be sitting back here and doing this again, learning from it. It's all about building. It hurts tonight to not really be involved in the championship discussion throughout the course of the race, but it doesn't take away from what has been a season that I never imagined ever happening.

Tonight will hurt a little bit, just be a little bit sad about it, then we'll be good to go in the off-season, come back stronger.

Q. Austin, you said from Daniel's perspective you can understand why he did it. What about from your perspective?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: From my perspective it sucks. I lost (smiling).

Q. At Martinsville last week, we talked about how you were taking pride in racing cleanly, didn't want to make contact. If you were in the situation that he was in tonight, would you have made contact?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: Look, I feel like that's a lot of speculation from my part. I feel like the way I wanted to set the precedence, I don't expect this out of everybody else, it might make A.J. laugh, I want to win a championship a certain way, whether that's racing a certain way in the regular season, if that's racing a certain way when somebody's season is on the line. I have a lot of respect for my competitors. I have a lot of respect for the guys I was racing against today.

I feel like that would have been a more challenging move probably for me to make than it was for Daniel. I feel like I executed at the right times in the race where I didn't have to be in that position. I didn't have to be in the position to move somebody out of the way. Instead I was the one getting moved out of the way.

I felt like all I did throughout the race, my somewhat desperation to get clean air back was so I could put myself back in position where I could at least control the race.

Q. Austin, still a lot of questions about whether Penske has an Xfinity team next year. Does it add to the sting at all?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I think that's a great question. Obviously I don't have all the answers for you. Yeah, it's obviously been an extremely successful program, something that's taken a lot of pride through the race shop.

When I walked in on Monday, saw the amount of people that were surrounding by two Xfinity cars, in all of Penske Racing. Think about all the race-winning race cars, Indy 500s, Daytona 500s, all the cars that come out of that shop, the number one focus was my two race cars is pretty surreal. It gave me chills when I walked in.

It's been a lot of fun to be part of it. The first full-time guy since Sam Hornish, Jr., he was my idol growing up. He's the reason why my Bandoleros and Legends cars were No. 77. To get the first championship since Brad. I have the opportunities to go back to back this year. All those things are obviously incredible. To win the Owners' Championship, I don't know how many of those that car has won. It's a bit poetic that it ends that way at least for me.

Certainly been a lot of fun. Very grateful for the opportunity in this series. It's helped more than just drivers. The people, the pit crew members. I think about the number of different -- I know you love looking at your rosters. The amount of different pit crew I had this year is staggering. I probably won with four different pit crews this year. It's all about a development team, not just myself, but Brian. Think about when I came into the series. Brian had just been taken out of the 22 car and Greg Erwin got put back in. That's a tough part for Brian. Then he has to deal with some kid, let alone the boss's son, talk about the pressure.

The relationship that Brian and I have been able to develop, the trust we have, it's a lot of fun. I'm going to miss it, and I'm going to miss the guys on the team. We're still going to get together and celebrate the off-season.

Yeah, it was almost the best way to close out the chapter for me.

Q. A.J., were you part of recruiting Daniel Hemric? Were you part of any of those discussions whether you should go after him?

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: No. That's Matt and Chris that obviously make those decisions. Whatever direction that they believe Kaulig Racing should go, it's their call. 100% support anything they make a call on. I look forward to being teammates with Daniel. I think he'll bring a lot with the team, something it's not lacked.

Truthfully, at times with Kaulig Racing, you bring in Justin Haley, coming out of Trucks. All he's ever driven is a Kaulig Xfinity car. I've never driven any Xfinity cars, at least in the last how many years. This is all I know. Even when Ross is here, he had driven the 42 a little bit, but other than that didn't have a lot of quality rides.

I think something that Daniel can bring is a lot of knowledge from different race cars, the way things feel, maybe what's good or bad about our race cars. I look forward to really having him. I think it's a great hire. Now he's the champ. I got to shoot for the champ. We got the champ on the team.

Q. Austin, can you take me through the last restart. Your previous restarts you often were able to get up ahead off of two. On the last restart you went way down low. Did that all kind of play a factor?

AUSTIN CINDRIC: Yeah, honestly, this is not just me being frustrated, we had so many restarts I can't even remember. With the final restart I think the catalyst there was not getting clear off of turn four. Obviously he drove it in stupid deep and left reared me, was still able to stay side-by-side. I feel like that was the catalyst for him still being close heading into turn three.

That was all he needed to be was close. Then it's I got to put front bias on the car so I don't get loose on entry, because he's going to at least air pack me, if not, get me loose, which I got loose and then got rear-ended. That pushes me up the track.

I think the only thing I could have done better is shallow off the corner, slide myself into a downshift. I didn't think that was going to be the best move. You can easily counter that by driving in soft, driving literally straight up underneath me.

I feel like I did a lot of the right things there. Just not enough.

Q. Was the hit from him...

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I've certainly had worse. Wasn't enough to wreck it. Until you spin somebody out, it's not dirty racing.

Q. A.J., we saw yesterday in the Truck race after Nemechek had such a dominant season, winning the regular season, in his words he felt like he never had a shot. It seemed like you were a little behind the eight ball all night. Did you feel the same? The second part would be for you as a veteran of the sport, Nemechek being younger, what would you say is the takeaway from that as far as advice going into the next year?

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: I mean, it's the way this format works, right? It's one of those things that we know the ultimate goal is you got to get the Championship 4. However you do it, whether you got 20 wins or you never win a race, you put yourself in that position. It's whoever is the best driver, best team executing in the race here. That's who the champion is, whether they scored the most points in the year or not.

That's part of the way the format works. It's exciting for the fans. You know coming to the race weekend there's four drivers with a shootout in all three of these series.

I took a lot last year from listening to Kevin Harvick and Chase Briscoe talking about the year they've had. Sure, at the end of the day you don't win the championship and that hurts, that's frustrating. It doesn't take away from the year that you went on to enjoy.

It was truthful when I said I wouldn't change having an okay year or a good year, somehow you make it to the Final 4, and if you become the champion, then you win the championship.

For me, I've gotten to kiss the bricks in the Cup race at a track I've always dreamed about running at. We've won five Xfinity races. We were able to win a regular-season championship.

Sure, it stings not having a shot at it today really. But we knew it was going to be a tough challenge to come here and contend against these three and have a real shot at it.

At the end of the day, I wouldn't change anything about this year. I mean, if you told me I could zero wins and win the championship, I would love the season I just had. I've gotten to enjoy so much with my race team, with Matt, with Chris, all the men and women at Kaulig Racing, all the celebrations we've had, all the pictures we've gotten to take, the times we've gotten to enjoy.

Hell, I threw up on the back straightaway at Indy at six in the morning from drinking too much after winning a Cup race. I'm not going to take that away. Like, hell yeah, like who would love to throw up on the straightaway? I don't know, maybe -- he doesn't drink much. About 10 more years in Cup, you'll start drinking heavy. Don't you worry.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: At this point I'm a Cup driver, and I'm just as pissed off and disappointed as they all seem to be.

A.J. ALLMENDINGER: No, I got you, but 10 years, you'll start drinking heavy from Cup. I don't care how it's going, you'll drink heavily from that.

AUSTIN CINDRIC: I got your number. I'll let you know.

THE MODERATOR: A.J., Austin, congratulations on the great season.