
The expectation in Team Penske's environment is set by Joey Logano, who ended the 2022 season by winning his second Cup championship and the third in team history.
WHO WON THE DAYTONA 500 LAST YEAR DRIVER
And he knew too that even if he hadn't followed up his 500 win with anything else - much less a 12th-place finish in the championship standings and one of the better Cup rookie campaigns in recent memory - his maiden season as a driver at NASCAR's top level was already regarded as a success. The significance of the victory was far from lost on Cindric - as the son of Team Penske president Tim Cindric, he grew up with a first-hand perspective of winning on racing's greatest stages.
WHO WON THE DAYTONA 500 LAST YEAR DRIVERS
Last year, Austin Cindric stunned the racing world by winning the Daytona 500 as a rookie, finding the front in the last 50 laps and outlasting several veteran drivers to score his first Cup win in just his eighth start. And through his own racing career, he achieved something that now puts him in the very same league his grandfather eternally occupies. Through that Indianapolis 500 win, Cindric found understanding and familiarity with his grandfather. So I certainly started to ask a lot more questions and find more stuff at my grandma's house and kind of understand that side of my family a lot more." To kind of learn about his impact and afterwards from developing that was pretty special. I'd been to the Indy 500 many times, I'd felt the passion for racing. I feel like that made that a lot more real. I guess I hadn't asked, but I had never really been told. But in victory, he would leave something that would give his future grandson a concrete idea of who he was, and how long winning one of the greatest races in the world could last, when he one day sat and watched a DVD set chronicling the Indy 500 through the decades. Trueman was already gravely ill with colon cancer by the time Rahal took the checkered flag, and he died 11 days later at the age of 51. Winning the Indy 500 would be Trueman's crowning achievement in racing - and one of the last things he ever did. Trueman won championships as a driver in SCCA, used his business riches to become the owner of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and then became the owner of the Truesports team that would win the 1986 Indianapolis 500 with Bobby Rahal at the wheel of Trueman's March 86C. The belt buckle - featuring an open-wheel race car and the slogan "Sleep Cheap!" - once belonged to Cindric's grandfather Jim Trueman, the founder of Red Roof Inn and a successful racer in his own right. It was a momento to a man that he never knew, but who he has much in common with. When he celebrated being the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year at last December's year-end awards night, Austin Cindric wore a special belt buckle to the occasion.
