FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Austin Cindric will start on the second row for the NASCAR Cup race at Texas after a week of celebrating a win at Talladega and a lot of attention paid to an expletive-laden radio rant directed toward him by his own teammate during Team Penske's first win of the season.
There also was the conversation with Joey Logano, who was furious midway through the race when he didn't get the help he needed in his Ford from Cindric, which allowed rival Toyota driver Bubba Wallace to win the second stage and earn valuable bonus points.
“Definitely needed, right? I mean, I think you’ve got to talk about that. You’ve got to talk about what happened on track. I think that’s a lot more of the substance of the conversation,” Cindric said Saturday.
"I feel like I’ve got pretty thick skin, and I also feel like I know Joey fairly well, so I’m not overly concerned or have too many emotions at all about what was said," he said. "But I think for us, sorting out where we both stood on track and what we can do in the future to be better there and capitalize on those opportunities.”
They are back on the track Sunday at Texas, the 1 1/2-mile track where Cindric qualified third for the 11th Cup race this season.
“All good for me, man,” Cindric said when asked if the teammates were good.
Carson Hocevar earned his first Cup pole with a qualifying lap of 191.659 mph in the Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. The 22-year-old Hocevar is the youngest pole winner ever at Texas Motor Speedway, which will host its 45th Cup race. His 56th career Cup race will start on the front row with Cup points leader William Byron (191.564 mph), also in a Chevy.
Cindric ran a qualifying lap of 191.523 mph. Logano will start 27th, two spots ahead of defending race champion Chase Elliott.
Logano said this week that he probably “spouted off” more than he should have against his teammate during the Talladega race, and that it came in the heat of the moment.
Among the reactions this week was Baseball Hall of Famer Chipper Jones criticizing reigning NASCAR champion Logano in a series of social media posts. Jones congratulated Cindric, called Logano selfish and celebrated Logano being disqualified for failing postrace inspection.
Cindric said he knows who the former Atlanta Braves slugger is even though he doesn't follow much baseball.
“But to have something like that with eyes on our sport, a Hall of Famer is really cool,” Cindric said. “The rest of it’s a lot of noise. But it’s cool to have someone like that behind me.”
As for that Braves cap Cindric keeps in his truck, that isn't about being a fan of the MLB team, and he didn't wear it at all this week.
“Well, the funny thing is, that’s like my neutral hat ... because I don’t want to walk around like advertising, ‘Hey, I’m a NASCAR driver’ if I can help it,” he said. “So it’s usually either that or my Colts (cap) that I snag in my truck.”
Chase Elliott left Texas last spring with his first victory after 42 races and 18 months without one. He is back with another long winless drought, this one 37 races and nearly 13 months since crossing the finish line under caution after taking the white flag as the leader there.
“Definitely not a conversation you want to be having, but nonetheless, I think we’ve been going in the right direction,” said Elliott, who is fourth in the NASCAR Cup standings, with six top-10 finishes and none outside the top 20.
The sport’s most popular driver shouldn’t be hard to find on the track Sunday, when he will drive a gold car to help NAPA Auto Parts mark its 100th year as a company. NAPA has been his primary sponsor since he was racing in the Xfinity Series in 2014.
Elliott's win last year was the eighth at Texas for Hendrick Motorsports, twice as many as any other team.
Hendrick has won three of the last four there with different drivers each time. William Byron won the track’s last fall race in 2023, two years after Kyle Larson won a playoff race and the non-points All-Star race.
“It’s not the best race track, but it’s unique enough that it’s different and it’s a challenge. There’s that positivity to it. They didn’t do a good job with the remodel of it,” Larson said, referring to a 2017 total repave with significant changes to Turns 1 and 2. “I mean you can still have success somewhere and not love it. But, yeah, I don’t hate it either.”
Larson at +375 is the betting favorite to win Sunday, per BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by Byron at +550 and Tyler Reddick at +700. ... Kyle Busch’s 35th race at Texas will come two days after his 40th birthday. He has four wins at Texas, where he has led in 20 different races overall, a track record. His 1,069 laps led are second only to Jimmie Johnson’s 1,152.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
NASCAR Cup Series driver Austin Cindric celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
