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Austin Cindric Shares Details Of Phone Call With Kyle Larson After Getting Wrecked At Atlanta

February 27, 2025  ·
  John Trent

Austin Cindric shared details of a phone conversation he had with Kyle Larson after Larson wrecked him during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta on Sunday night.

With three laps to go Larson had taken the lead, but Austin Cindric remain at right rear quarter panel. As they came off the turn, Larson slid up the track made contact with Cindric and pushed him into the wall. Cindric bounced down off the wall as William Byron came up the track. The two collided and both spun down the track and into the inside wall.

Following the race Larson accepted blame for the wreck telling Kelly Crandall, “I thought I was going to clear him a little bit better, drive in front of him and then he could pick me up down the backstretch. I think he just got there. He got closer to my right side quicker than I anticipated. I’m like tight. My spotter is yelling last second, ‘He’s outside! Outside!’ I’m just trying to give space because I don’t want to get hooked myself into the wall. So I just probably ran him out of space. I haven’t seen the reply yet, but I’m assuming that’s what happened. It was just kind of a lazy drive up the track by my end.”

Cindric made it clear he planned to talk to Larson following the race telling Bob Pockrass, “I got put in the wall, and wrecked, and didn’t win.” When asked about Larson, he responded, “Not clear. I mean not clear. I don’t know what information he’s getting, but obviously my car was on his outside. It definitely merits conversation. It’s unfortunate because we led a lot of laps and had four of the fastest cars in Atlanta didn’t win either one of them so.”

Cindric spoke to members of the media on Wednesday and informed them that he and Larson did indeed have a conversation. He said, “Kyle and I got connected on Monday and I thought we had a good talk. Kyle took responsibility on the end of the race there, which ended our race. Kind of talking about it doesn’t really unwreck my race car. I think we’re kind of on the same page as what the expectations are moving forward racing together.”

He continued, “It’s about all I can influence is talking about it. Look, I hope to race Kyle and I certainly have a lot of respect, but I know if I want to win in this series I’m certainly going to have to race against him a lot more. I certainly expect us to be at that level throughout the year and I just expect it to be better than what we had on Sunday.”

NBC Sports also reported that Cindric added, “It’s still something I’m relatively upset about and gets the blood pressure going a little bit, but that’s racing. I’m not the only one that’s been in those positions and felt like they haven’t been able to capitalize on an opportunity to win a race, or had somebody else be the cause of that. It doubles down with it being two weeks in a row and at this level, race wins don’t fall out of the sky, so you’ve got to work at them and it’s hard to put yourself in that position.”

While noting he was still “relatively upset” about the incident, he also indicated he’s working on putting it behind him and already looking forward to Circuit of the Americas, “If I’m going to use Atlanta as the example, by the time our plane landed from a relatively short flight I was already done with all of my notes and my debriefs and had all of my thoughts documented for the team on the event. By Tuesday I’m completely over at least the work that needs to be done for it, so that’s kind of how I process those things. I think by the time I get to the racetrack it’s back to business and there’s plenty of other things to focus on.”

What do you make of Cindric’s comments regarding his conversation with Kyle Larson?

NEXT: Carson Hocevar Elaborates On Post-Race Conversations From Atlanta

Author: John Trent