Austin Cindric penalized after failing pre-race inspection at Martinsville

A little bit of bad news for the No. 2 team of Austin Cindric. His Ford Mustang Dark Horse failed pre-race inspection twice. The Team Penske crew will be penalized with loss of pit stall selection and will have a crew member ejected.

Austin Cindric is no longer in the NASCAR Playoffs. However, his teammate Ryan Blaney is hoping to win his way into the Championship 4 on Sunday. Their other teammate, Joey Logano, has already secured his spot in the finale.

When a car fails inspection twice, the car chief is usually the one ejected. That is not always the case, though. We will see if this affects the race today.

Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut reported the Cindric news on his X/Twitter account.

Cup Series inspection is complete. The No. 2 failed twice (loss of pit selection; crew member ejection).

— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) November 2, 2024

Austin Cindric made a run through the Round of 12. He did not advance to this semifinal round. Still, Team Penske has a chance to get his two teammates into the Championship 4 this weekend. With Logano locked in, perhaps Penske will three-peat at Phoenix?

In his career, Cindric only has one top-10 at Martinsville. That came last season with a P9 effort in the fall race. He started P21 that day. In the spring earlier this season, Cindric qualified P14 and finished the race P23.

Good news, failing twice means he can still qualify. If he can get up in the top-15 or so, I think he has a chance to have a really strong race overall.

Austin Cindric has struggled in recent races

Despite starting the Round of 16 strong, Austin Cindric started to struggle in the second round of the NASCAR Playoffs. He has only continued to struggle in this Round of 8 as well.

P34, P32, P4, P34, P27 are Cindric’s results in the last five races. He made a valiant effort at the Roval. However, he was in too much of a points deficit to make the next round without winning the race itself.

Team Penske has been strong at Martinsville. We will see if that trend continues. Ryan Blaney did win this race last year in a walk-off to the Championship 4. That very well could happen again, but we won’t know until we see the speed in these cars.

Austin Cindric and the other Cup Series drivers will get 45 minutes of practice. They will then qualify ahead of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race tonight. Lots of action on the track at Martinsville. And there is a new tire compound. Let’s hope for great racing.