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Austin Cindric edges Ryan Preece to win in intense photo-finish at Talladega

JHby:Jonathan Howard•about 13 hours•

Jondean25

Austin Cindric Talladega win
Screenshot credit: NASCAR on FOX via X.com

What a race at Talladega Superspeedway! No “big one” but Austin Cindric just scored a big win to punch his ticket to the playoffs. Since 2022, Cindric has won three NASCAR Cup Series races, including the Daytona 500. He led a ton of laps at Daytona and Atlanta and finally gets rewarded with the win.

Coming to the line, Ryan Preece and Austin Cindric were putting their feet through the floor. There was a tension as everyone watching in the stands and at home expected a wreck to break out at any moment. It never did.

Cindric gets the win in a photo finish. RFK Racing once again loses at the line. A tough couple of seasons when it comes to close finishes for that organization. 0.022 seconds was the difference.

Is Regan Smith okay? Austin Cindric picked him up during his frenzy of a celebration.

This was a different Talladega race than we saw in 2024 in both the Spring and Fall. Yes, we had fuel-saving but the teams were more aggressive today with pushing the pace. JGR and 23XI Racing moved up and stretched the field out in the first stage.

Then we had different pit strategy leading up to the final pit stops. There was action, early wrecks, and a clean race to the finish. With how speedway racing has gone this season, it was nice to see one get to the end without a weird officiating controversy or ugly wreck.

Now, there is a problem with passing. Kyle Larson and William Byron didn’t have an opportunity to pull out of line and make a move. Joey Logano lamented that fact after the race, no chance to actually make a move so drivers settled for not wrecking over wrecking for nothing.

Austin Cindric finally gets the job done

Early this season, Austin Cindric was up front but couldn’t get to the finish line with a good finish. This is the third top-10 finish for Cindric this season. That is the most he has had 10 races into the season in his Cup Series career.

This race had a few key moments. Kyle Busch speeding on pit road late was a big deal, he was in that front group as the final green flag pit stops were taking place. Of course, Ross Chastain’s huge block on the Spire and Toyota train that was coming around. That likely changed the result of this race today.

We didn’t have any kind of weird controversy. No 28 car wreck at the end. This was a clean race to the finish and it resulted in an insanely close finish. We all know there are issues with the car. This was probably the best result we could have asked for though, given the limitations of the car.

A big win for Austin Cindric. He keeps doing enough to get to victory lane. He didn’t lead the most laps today, his teammate got really mad at him in Stage 2, but in the end, it was the 2 car out in front today.