AUSTIN Cindric has long had today circled as the most important day of preparations for his Supercars debut.

That’s right, the Wednesday of the Adelaide Grand Final, a non-driving day.

At Sandown, Cindric rode shotgun with Cam Waters for a passenger lap, observed the intricacies and flow of a race weekend, and post-event got his first Gen3 drive.

The 27-year-old then got a whole heap more mileage at The Bend Motorsport Park to acquaint himself with the #5 Armor All Tickford Mustang.

But he has maintained all along that learning the Adelaide track itself will be the biggest factor in his performance when it matters, and that an up-close look first-hand will be the best way to do just that.

“Especially with a track like Adelaide, a street circuit, going on track walk is going to be more beneficial than any sim time I’ll have had,” he said.

“Just because you have got to understand the surface changes, the bumps, the subtilties of a track like that… nothing really replaces the real thing.”

The Undercut – Grand Final Time!

Unpacking the Sandown 500 and looking forward to an epic Adelaide Grand Final!

The thought of a challenging Australian circuit is not totally foreign to Cindric, having tackled Mount Panorama twice in the mid-2010s via the Bathurst 12 Hour – something he describes as a “big stepping stone in my career”.

The Team Penske driver is confident the Supercars opportunity will be beneficial for his own NASCAR road course skills, even if there’ll be plenty of altered nuances to navigate.

“It will be the first time I’ve driven a race car in many years without a spotter,” he said.

“So I think that’s probably the first takeaway, is the transfer of information – it’s a lot quieter on the radio than what I’m used to.

“Not that I haven’t done it before, but the information flow, what I’m going to need, a lot of that is also supplied on the dash which is quite interesting as far as what position you’re in, gaps to cars behind you…”

NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Jesse Love will also race in Adelaide in the Dunlop Super2 Series.

Track action starts Thursday.