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Austin Cindric may have been the last person who expected to win Sunday's Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway. Even he admitted it.

But a dose of Lady Luck intervened, shaking up the playoff race, saving Cindric's season and maybe even his career with Team Penske.

"The third-place car wins the race," Cindric explained after exiting his car in Victory Lane. "That's the way I see it. It's not like I went out there and took the lead away.

"But we were in position. One of our best executed races so far this year with probably our best speed we've shown this year. Yeah, there's definitely still a bit of that shock factor left over for me."

What Cindric did was capitalize on two shocking late-race events. First, Christopher Bell's engine started misfiring after trying to pass Ryan Blaney for the lead. As Cindric passed the No. 20, the day's fastest car, he rose to second place but still ran about two seconds behind his Penske teammate.

That's where they ran, in position for a 1-2 finish until Blaney slowed suddenly through Turn 4 heading to the white flag lap of the race. Turns out his team didn't put enough fuel in the car during their final stop.

"I never thought in my mind we were short," Blaney said. "It's one of those things."

"I'm heartbroken for the 12 team," Cindric added. "I don't know what happened to them at the end of the race, but they deserved to win. Ryan has been a hell of a leader."

While Cindric acknowledged Blaney's trash, he sure wasn't ready to give back the treasure left behind: a second career Cup win and his first since the 2022 Daytona 500. Just two top-five finishes since the start of the 2023 season had put Cindric's name on the hot seat, critics claiming he was undeserving of the No. 2 seat formerly occupied by Cup champions Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski.

"That's not good enough to race and drive at Team Penske," Cindric admitted. "I know that. No one has to tell me that. There's no meeting that has to be set in place. I take that very personally … I'm an internally motivated person. This is not fun if I'm not winning."

Now, Cindric has to feel a monkey's off his back. There will forever be concerns about nepotism within the organization -- the keys will one day be given to Austin's father, Tim Cindric, the Team Penske President -- but Austin has clinched a playoff spot in a year both Blaney and Joey Logano have not.

That's three Cup championships between those two teammates if you're counting. To join them one day, Cindric needs a career reset in the worst type of way.

He's hoping this lucky break can serve as a start.

"[Cindric] has not lost his desire," Team Penske executive vice president Walter Czarnecki said. "This is a reaffirming situation, circumstance for him today. In fact, we just talked about it in Victory Lane.

"We've never lost faith in Austin Cindric, I promise you."

Traffic Report

Green: Brad Keselowski. Finishes of first, second and third the last three weeks have revitalized the 2012 series champ after a tough start for Ford. It's easily the best stretch of his career after leaving Penske in 2022 to co-own his own team at RFK Racing.

Yellow: Joey Logano. Logano's fifth-place finish at Gateway was a step in the right direction for a No. 22 team that's uncharacteristically struggled in 2024. But it doesn't get him on the right side of the playoff bubble and is still a step back from previous finishes at this track (first, third). Third best at Penske is not a good place to be right now.

Red: Bubba Wallace. What's going on with the No. 23 team? Since back-to-back DNFs at Talladega and Dover a month ago, they have yet to score a top-five finish and have fallen out of the current 16-driver playoff field. Wallace was a ho-hum 21st Sunday and has led just seven laps during this stretch, a clear step behind teammate Tyler Reddick, who was fourth at Gateway.

Speeding Ticket: Martin Truex Jr. Truex received a lot of scrutiny for being able to push an ailing Bell down the straightaways late in the Gateway event. Truex, a teammate of Bell's at Joe Gibbs Racing, was sacrificing after a flat tire left him several laps down and with nothing left to gain in 34th place.

What happened next was exceptional, Truex's push helping Bell's lap times by as much as six tenths of a second. It helped the No. 20 team salvage a top-10 finish out of the day instead of leaving them a lap down or more.

But it should also be against the rules going forward. NASCAR currently allows the ability for someone to push another car as long as it's not the final lap of the race. It just feels like a push for 10-plus laps would seem a little against the grain of what racing is all about. And what if Bell didn't have a teammate? He'd be left to fend for himself. It all seems a bit unfair…

Oops!

The day's biggest incident occurred when Kyle Larson got loose trying to get underneath Kyle Busch for position. Larson wound up wiping out Busch's No. 8, the latest blow for a two-time champion who's been suffering through a tough past few weeks.

Busch may have caused his own misfortune after brushing against Larson halfway down the front straightaway, changing the angle at which the two entered the corner. But that didn't stop him from railing against Larson for his aggression at that point in the race.

"Not sure what that single point was going to mean for him," Busch said. "But it certainly hurt us a lot, it took that point away as well as the others we'd get for the stage and also the rest of the day … we can't afford days like that."

"I think every point is important for everybody in the field," Larson responded. "Even guys at the front of the field like myself. We're trying to win the regular-season championship and 15 bonus points go a long way … hard racing. I've got nothing bad to say about Kyle and nothing changes on my end."