Austin Cindric, 26, is too young to be retiring from racing. So, it does come as a surprise hearing the Penske racer talk about life post-retirement. It has possibly got something to do with Austin’s father, Tim Cindric, who leads Penske Racing as the team’s president and is considered one of the top team executives in NASCAR.
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Many racers, much like Tim, have taken up management roles in the sport, post-retirement. Many form and lead their own race teams while some become high-ranking executives in established ones. Austin, however, he is not too keen on taking that path.
“I don’t think I’d want to do what my dad does because that’s a tough job, and he’s also really, really good at it,” he said in a recent interview with The Athletic. “Do I think I could do well in some form of a management role? Yeah, maybe. But do I want to go out and start my own race team? No, because there’s no better race team than Penske Racing, in my opinion.”
At Cindric’s age, drivers are fully focused on the racing side of things, least bothered about what goes on in the higher levels of management. They take up executive roles, or start teams, much later. There is still a lot of time for the driver of the No. 2 Penske car to mull his future.
A natural transition to an executive role might be written in his genes, though. Tim is a legend at Penske Racing. He took charge of the team’s IndyCar operations for 400 races and delivered 139 race wins and three championships. He’s done well in NASCAR too. The team, under him, has won the last two Cup Series championships.
Penske racer explains dynamic with father after Cup Series promotion
They may be father and son, but Austin and Tim hardly worked together before 2022, despite being on the same team. As president, the 56-year-old has to give more importance to the Cup Series than the other divisions in NASCAR. So when his son was racing in the Xfinity Series, he simply trusted Austin, and the crew, to get the results. They did justice to that trust.
Things are different in the Cup Series. There’s a lot more interaction between the two. That’s a bit change from the dynamic they were used to. And, their relationship has grown, and there is a lot of love and mutual respect.
“He’s my dad, so I love the guy,” Austin said. “Other than that it’s maybe not the strangest it’s ever been. In Xfinity, he could kind of avoid me and just let me and my team do our thing. He’d you know kind of ignore that obviously his role within the team. But he is in all of our meetings now.”
Things had been tough for Austin the past few years. He has been struggling to get to the victory lane. This year, he finally won his first Cup Series race since the 2022 Daytona 500. His victory at the World Wide Technology Raceway in June would have put a smile on his father’s face who was the inspiration behind Austin becoming a race car driver.
