WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Mission 200 at the Glen at Watkins Glen International ended up being just the latest milestone in the racing career of Connor Zilisch. He showed up for his first career start with JR Motorsports, was fastest in practice, won the pole and then won the race while leading the most laps.
A sentence like that to describe a race in the Xfinity Series would likely remind people of Kyle Busch‘s most dominant races during his years with Joe Gibbs Racing. He would be in the race and everyone seemed to be racing for second.
By that point, Busch had already been full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for years. He was able to use that skill to destroy many of the series regulars. Zilisch, on the other hand, had never raced in the series before and only has a handful of starts in NASCAR’s national-level series.
“To come out here and prove to myself that I can do it and compete at the highest levels is very special to me,” Zilisch said in his post-race press conference. “It’s hard to judge how good I am when I’m racing in ARCA … but there were five Cup guys out there today. It’s a sense of relief that I can compete out there against those guys.”
Remember, we’re talking about an 18-year-old here. He isn’t someone that’s been racing at the top level of the sport for 20 years. He’s only been racing cars in general for three years following a successful stint in karting.
Zilisch isn’t just supremely talented, but he’s also more articulate than the typical driver. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with Zilisch on a few occasions this year, the first of which was at Rolex 24 Media Day in January.
In the interview above, Zilisch discussed his schedule for 2024, which would include starts in eight different series. To this point, he’s won races in seven of them. Everything from LMP2 cars to a Mazda MX-5. Not to mention ARCA and ARCA East, Trans-Am’s TA2 class and the zMAX CARS Tour.
We’re talking many different kinds of cars here. Prototypes to stock cars to production-based race cars.
The only major series that he’s raced in this year and not won in is the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. He debuted there at Circuit of the Americas in March and set a track record in winning the pole. He then blew his tire on the first lap and ground the front sway bar off the truck. Despite losing laps, he was eventually able to finish fourth.