Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton embrace rookie challenges in NASCAR Cup Series
A quarter of the way into their debut Cup seasons, both drivers say the early wins have given way to the grind of learning a new level of competition.
Eight races into the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, rookies Austin Cindric and Harrison Burton say the early buzz of their debut year has settled into a longer grind, according to Crash.net. Cindric, who won the season-opening Daytona 500, sat 14th in points; Burton, driving the No. 21 for Wood Brothers Racing, sat 29th.
Cindric's Daytona win itself came in overtime, holding off Bubba Wallace by roughly three feet -- a margin ESPN put at .036 seconds -- on what was also team owner Roger Penske's 85th birthday, according to ESPN's race recap. "First and foremost Roger Penske, happy birthday!" Cindric said in his victory lane remarks, per ESPN's report, before adding of his celebrating crew, "Can't describe how happy watching this makes me."
"The honeymoon phase is certainly over. Trying to figure out being a rookie in the Cup Series," Cindric said, according to Crash.net. He added: "It's a little early to tell as far as if we're to overreact to anything."
Cindric, who drives the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske, had recorded just one top-10 finish — an eighth place — since his Daytona win, per Crash.net's reporting. Burton's best result through the same stretch was a 16th-place finish at Las Vegas.
The framing from both drivers
Burton, who took over the historic No. 21 Wood Brothers ride, described the assignment in terms of legacy as much as results: "It's definitely a cool opportunity and a big responsibility to carry on that legacy," he said, according to Crash.net. He added, "The biggest thing for me is to understand that it's a huge blessing to be here," and characterized the season as "a building process" that "everyone at the Wood Brothers understands."
A three-way rookie battle
Cindric and Burton are competing for Rookie of the Year honors alongside Todd Gilliland, per Crash.net, heading into a Bristol Motor Speedway dirt race — the series' first dirt event since 1989 — where Cindric was set to start 20th and Burton 24th. The retrieved reporting does not include full-season outcomes for the Rookie of the Year race beyond this early-season snapshot.
How the season ended
Cindric went on to win the 2022 Sunoco Rookie of the Year title, according to Speedway Media's season-end coverage, finishing 12th in the final Cup Series championship standings -- the best points finish by a rookie since 2016. Beyond his Daytona 500 win, Cindric added five top-5 finishes and nine top-10s over the full season, led 86 laps, and won his first career Cup pole at Auto Club Speedway in February, per the same report. Burton and Gilliland, both also driving Fords, ended up well behind him in the standings -- 27th and 28th respectively -- the same report said, meaning the early-season grind both drivers described to Crash.net never fully turned around for either of Cindric's rivals.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Crash.net and season-end reporting by Speedway Media. It restores a story originally published on this site in April 2022; figures are as reported at the time.