Briscoe & Cindric Make Big Playoff Gains With Clean Days

Chase Briscoe was the highest finishing NASCAR Cup Series playoff driver Sunday at Watkins Glen International. (HHP/David Graham photo)

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – On any given weekend in sports, and particularly in the NASCAR playoffs, anything can happen. It’s just a matter of which side of luck one falls on that determines their fate.

Sunday at Watkins Glen International, Cup Series playoff underdogs Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric found the good side of fortune in a chaos-filled Go Bowling at the Glen, making the most out of a wild-card road course showdown.

Briscoe, from Mitchell, Ind., native secured his second top 10 in the last three weeks and rebounded from an abysmal outing at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway, where he was eliminated in a hard early crash with fellow playoff competitor Kyle Larson.

It brought Briscoe into Watkins Glen weekend in a major points hole – not necessarily a must-win situation, but down 21 points and needing a decent amount of help.

He got that help and made some of his own, too, as the No. 14 team secured 12 stage points by angling their pit strategy toward staying out at the end of the first two stages to secure points positions.

“It was huge,” said Briscoe of crew chief Richard Boswell’s plan throughout the race. “What we needed to do was to score stage points and run well in the race and we were able to do that.  It was a really good, solid day. I felt like I could have gotten a couple more points, but I just didn’t want to risk losing it there at the end.”

The 29-year-old knew he had good positioning over the field and his cut line competition, so he played out his race methodically. It’s allowed him to position himself for a potential deep run in the playoffs.

“We did what we needed to do and now we just need to go do that same thing next week at Bristol. We need to just hit singles and doubles and don’t do anything crazy,” added Briscoe, who advanced all the way to the Round of 8 in his playoff debut two years ago. “As long as we just execute all day long, it should be enough. We’ll just go on and see what we can do.”

In one of the biggest playoff points jumps in recent memory, Briscoe gained 27 points on the elimination threshold, going from 21 points out to six points above the cut line with one race left in the Round of 16 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Sunday’s sixth-place result marked Briscoe’s best career finish on the Watkins Glen road course. He was 13th back in March at Bristol, tied for his best Cup finish on the concrete high banks in four starts.

Meanwhile, in his first three Cup Series seasons, Austin Cindric has been overshadowed by his organizational teammates at Team Penske. Some of it has been due to a lack of results, but also largely because Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano have each won championships in two out of the last three years.

It created pressure to perform for Cindric, who emerged on the Cup scene after winning the 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship with a six-win season.

But after ups and downs at the premier series level, Cindric seems to have finally found his playoff footing this year as well.

He caught a break winning in June at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill., after Blaney ran out of fuel on the final lap. That win marked the second of his career, catapulting Cindric back into the playoffs for the first time since his Daytona 500 win in 2022.

Austin Cindric in action at Watkins Glen International Sunday. (Danny Hansen/NKP photo)

It was the boost the 26-year-old needed, as well as a reset that allowed him to build toward the star potential Roger Penske invested in three seasons ago.

Now, Cindric sits in the best position of his career in the postseason standings. At Watkins Glen, he had a chance to add to his points cushion after a strong Atlanta weekend.

Cindric qualified fifth after being scored seventh fastest in practice. That success carried into the race, where he gained six stage points and managed to stay in contention throughout the day.

In ending the day 10th, Cindric was one of only two playoff drivers – alongside Briscoe – to finish in the top 10 at the 2.45-mile road course.

“The No. 2 Autotrader team did a great job bringing a fast car to the track and we were able to execute well enough to get a good finish and solid points,” said Cindric. “We were probably a little bit better than 10th, but collecting points is really important the first couple [playoff] rounds.

“There was a little bit of stress in just trying to make sure the car was straight on all those restarts [at the end], but overall, we had great speed in our Ford Mustang.”

The Columbus, Ohio native now has three straight top 15s and two consecutive top 10s, his first back-to-back pair since Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Atlanta back in 2022.

Sunday was also Cindric’s best finish at Watkins Glen in his three years at the Cup Series level. He enters Bristol next weekend also looking to raise the bar, in search of his first finish better than 20th in three starts on the Tennessee concrete.

Both Briscoe and Cindric, originally considered almost afterthoughts entering the playoffs, overachieved and now have solid chances headed into the round one cutoff race. Cindric sits third in the playoff standings, 43 points clear of elimination.

Briscoe climbed from 16th to 11th, six points ahead of 13th-place Denny Hamlin going into The Last Great Colosseum, where Hamlin has won the last two races.

Coverage of the Round of 16 cutoff race, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, begins Saturday night, Sept. 22 at 7:30 pm ET on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.