Team Penske turmoil at Talladega brings out defense of Cindric from ex Braves slugger Chipper Jones

TALLADEGA, Ala. — If there's beef between teammates Austin Cindric and Joey Logano — and none other than Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Chipper Jones is convinced there is — then Team Penske has some work to do to smooth things over.

At the end of the second stage of Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway, Cindric didn't help Logano enough to Logano's liking and it allowed rival Toyota driver Bubba Wallace to win the stage and valuable bonus points that come with it. Logano launched into an expletive-laden rant on his team radio in which he seethed at fellow Ford driver Cindric.

''Way to go Austin,'' said Logano in the part suitable for print. ''You just gave it to him. Gave a Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go ... put that in the book.''

Cindric and Team Penske management seemed to understand. Jones was not so forgiving in a series of social media posts.

''Good teammates are hard to come by, Boss! Remember that one of urs MFed u on national tv, when in all actuality, u did everything possible to keep from wrecking him,'' Jones wrote. ''Hate to be #dueces in the ‘team' meeting on Monday. Some people are ‘hooray for our team as long as I'm the star' as every team has them. Hendrick, RCR, JGR, Penske, etc. Sometimes karma is glorious.''

And, just in case ''anyone is confused, lemme be clear," Jones wrote as he tagged Logano as the target of his ire. Jones, who grew up not far from Daytona International Speedway and apparently is a NASCAR fan, continued his rant by calling Logano ''selfish'' in another post, and celebrated in yet another when Logano was disqualified for failing post-race inspection.

At Team Penske, the reaction was more muted.

''I felt like I kind of just got pinched, was trying not to wreck the cars in front of me, including Joey. It was a messy end of the stage ... Joey could have probably done better, we let one slip there,'' Cindric said. "I can understand his frustration without kind of seeing the whole picture. These are the types of things that when you're expecting someone to have your best interest, those are the challenges, right? We have a lot of meetings centered around that. I feel like it requires constant maintenance. It's not always pretty. The conversations aren't always easy.

''I do feel like as a team we do it better than most. I think that's something we'll definitely be talking about (Monday) as far as how to do it better, understand all sides, be better for it.''

Michael Nelson, named president of Team Penske's NASCAR program earlier this year when Cindric's father, Tim, relinquished some of his roles at the organization, thought the situation would be cleared up internally.

''It's just like a normal family,'' he said. "We have to go in and close the door when we're not in front of everybody else and work through the issues that we have. There was obviously some frustration there. Heat-of-the-moment situation, for sure. I think we've done a better job than most. It just shows you that there's still more work to do, that it's something you have to continually work on race after race.''

As Cindric wore Talladega's traditional winner's wreath all around the track, he didn't seem bothered by any potential beef with NASCAR's only active three-time Cup Series champion. It's been tough going for Cindric, who won the Daytona 500 in his 2022 rookie season, went winless in 2023, won once last year and on Sunday snapped a 30-race losing streak and became the first Team Penske driver to win a race through the first 10 this season.

As Cindric tried to find his footing, teammates Logano and Ryan Blaney combined to win the last three Cup Series championships. As his teammates won races and title, Cindric was fighting to prove he wasn't a nepo-baby and deserved his seat at one of NASCAR's top teams.

Cindric said the success of his teammates was motivation to him. At 14th in the Cup Series standings, he's now the only Penske driver locked into the playoffs as the series heads to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend.

''Anytime you can have an example set you try at a bare minimum not to just meet that example — I want to be better. I want to be the best, right?'' Cindric said. "Just being as good in my mind, as far-fetched as it might be as a two-, three-year Cup driver to say I want to be better than the champion, that's how you have to think.

''I commit way too much of my time. I ask a lot out of the people I work with. I try to reciprocate with that. The ‘as good' is not good enough in my mind. I look at it as an example, as a competitive advantage for us to be able to have that type of example in-house.''

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