Austin Cindric reveals how he handled teammate Joey Logano beef to Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Austin Cindric didn’t take it personal when Joey Logano called him a “dumb fu*k” among other things on the radio during this past Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway. Cindric knows it was in the moment frustration outburst from Logano and it’s water under the bridge going forward, he told Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the “Dale Jr. Download.”

“I don’t really take that overly personal,” Cindric said. “Joey and I know each other really well and we’ve been teammates for a while now. I like to think of that he’s just a bit Italian and that’s where that comes from. We talked about it yesterday, talked about it as a team and cleared the air on some topics. What that really comes down to is I think between the three or four of us really, we’re all good enough at this to expect a lot out of each other and we do a lot for each other.

“When that comes, when we have three of our cars in proximity at the end of a stage, we want to capitalize. These are great opportunities for us and that’s obviously where the frustration comes from. You can dig in the weeds of what we could and couldn’t do, I feel like everyone has a role there. Otherwise, I’m cool about it.”

Coming to the end of Stage 2, multiple drivers and teams were vying for the stage win. Logano lost out to Bubba Wallace. It all happened after Cindric had to check up while trying to push Logano. The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion lost it on the radio.

“Way to go Austin, way to go, you dumb fu*k!” Logano said, via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. “Way to fu*king go. What a stupid sh*t. You just gave it to him. Gave a Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go. What a dumbass. Put that in the book again.”

Austin Cindric, Joey Logano both fast at Talladega

Both Logano and Cindric were fast at Talladega. Logano led 24 laps and looked like he would be in contention to win. But in the closing laps of the race, Logano was unable to position himself for a chance to compete for the checkered flag. Logano came out on the wrong side of the final pit cycle and once the field got 2×2, he was stuck with nowhere to go. He finished fifth before NASCAR disqualified him for failing post-race inspection.

Cindric edged out Ryan Preece by 0.022 seconds to win at Talladega, his first win of the season and third of his Cup Series career. Cindric has been fast at superspeedways this season and finally finished it off.

“It takes everything, and we’ve had it so many races here and you’ve got to have a little bit more. I’m just so proud of everybody on this race team,” Austin Cindric said after the race, via Dustin Long of NBC Sports. “Team Penske, the entire shop deserves wins at these racetracks with how fast our race cars are and I’m just so proud to be able to win for John Menard and the Menards team – to get this yellow car in Victory Lane and get in the playoffs.

“… You’re waiting for it to go wrong [on the final laps], but you’ve got to stay in the zone. There are so many times at the end I was just focused on the feedback [spotter] Doug Campbell was giving me and what I knew about our car and maybe other cars I observed throughout the field today, so just an absolutely fantastic job by everybody involved.”