Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar made contact late in the race at Bristol, and Joey Logano came out on top. Before that, on a restart in Gateway, Bubba Wallace spun while trying to make a pass four-wide, with Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece feeling the effects of the incident, and William Byron getting collected by Wallace’s spinning car. 

Just two incidents and six Chase contenders involved. That’s not just coincidence; that is the change that has come about with the Chase replacing the playoff format with drivers keen on racking up 55 points for a win. And that isn’t an outside observation, but one made by Team Penske’s No. 2 driver, Chase contender Austin Cindric. 

“I feel like if you feel like you can win the championship, you feel like every week is the opportunity to win the championship, whereas it was probably not until the round of eight that that really happened,” Cindric told Frontstretch. “So that’s why you’re seeing guys at the front of the field, racing for the championship, causing wrecks and, you know, being very aggressive.”

Cindric implied that in earlier seasons, drivers didn’t necessarily feel the need to go all out or try to win every race until now. And the urgency that can be seen from drivers in the Chase this season only adds to what gives race wins great importance. 

Cindric’s Penske teammate Joey Logano entered the Chase as the 9th-seeded driver, 65 points behind then leader Denny Hamlin. Logano won in Bristol and is just 15 points behind Hamlin, who hasn’t won in the Chase and hasn’t even finished in the top five yet. 

Hamlin’s Chase has also seen contact. In Darlington, on Lap 241, he moved up the track and slowed down while Michael McDowell was coming down that line and didn’t see Hamlin check up. Hamlin ended up with damaged toe links and had an unscheduled pit stop to make repairs. He raced back to 18th, but without that contact, he would have finished higher. 

Cindric’s other Penske teammate, Ryan Blaney, too, has seen the effects of not winning races. A brake rotor failure ending his race at Gateway and contact with Hocevar in Bristol, which most are calling an aggressive block from the Penske driver, saw him DNF for the second race in a row. Blaney, who was running in the top-three all season long, had three regular-season wins, but now he’s down in 6th, 52 points behind Larson, the championship leader. 

But Cindric is the one Penske driver who no one expects to win, not just the title, but even a single race. Yet, the No. 2 Ford driver is searching for exactly that. While most of the Chase drivers around him have been involved in an incident or two, Cindric has kept it as clean as a whistle. 

13th at Darlington, 10th at Gateway, and 11th at Bristol — that’s how Cindric’s Chase has shaped up. He is currently 11th in points, having jumped four spots from his original 15th seed entry into the Chase. Cindric broke down his Chase, and he knows a few races can change the picture of his entire season. 

“Darlington, you can say, we probably didn’t finish as good as we ran all day, and then, Gateway, we probably finished better than we ran all day. So, you know, and then Bristol, you know, a bit of the same,” said Cindric. “I would like to be better than good. I’d like to have some great races here to finish out the year. I’d like to win a race to finish out the year, multiple races. It’s still definitely in the cards for us. Still have a lot to fight for the next seven weeks.”

Cindric is currently 116 points behind Larson. One race win brings that gap down quite a bit. Two race wins leave just six points. While he would need other drivers to have low-points-scoring races, if Cindric can notch up a few wins and continue the consistency he has shown, he can very well enter the title fold when it goes down to the wire.

If drivers continue with their all-out aggressive approach and if Cindric continues to keep his nose clean, the No. 2 Ford Penske driver may truly showcase what a dark horse can do when the pressure is on.