The second NASCAR Cup Series race of the 2022 season is here after a wild Daytona 500. The drivers are in Fontana, California for the Wise Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway. The race will start Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET and will air on Fox. It will also air on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Austin Cindric is looking to keep the good times going after winning the Daytona 500 last week. For the Wise Power 400, Cindric earned the pole for the race, which is the first Cup Series pole of his career. When speaking to PopCutlre.com earlier this week, Cindric revealed his goals after winning “The Great American Race.”
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“Even before this past weekend, I haven’t really made any concrete goals for the season past whether it’s team communication, things I want to learn, identifying strengths or weaknesses,” Cindric told PopCulture. “I still think all those things are in play for me but I just want to be a contender as often as possible and find out what that takes and really measure myself against some of the best drivers in stock cars in the world.”
As mentioned by NASCAR.com, it’s been 728 days since NASCAR had an event at Auto Club Speedway. In that race, the Auto Club 400 which happened right before the COVID-19 pandemic, Alex Bowman won to claim his second Cup Series race in his career.
“It feels like it has been forever,” Bowman said Thursday during a teleconference with reporters, per NASCAR.com. “… You know, I think it is an amazing race track. Super bumpy, really slick, the seams add a whole other element to it. It’s a track that drivers really like.”
With it being two years since the last time the drivers competed on the track along with the addition of the Next Gen cars, fans should be in for a very interesting race. “Heading back to Auto Club Speedway for the first time in two years and with the new Next Gen car will bring a lot of unknowns,” Tyler Reddick said in a team release. “I’ve only been to Auto Club in the Cup Series once and it was in 2020. It’s just that type of race track, even when you’ve got the best car, it’s easy to make mistakes and step over the line. This car has already proved it’s unforgiving, you’ve got to drive the daylights out of it, but it will fight you if you don’t respect it.”
