Zilisch’s Darlington Debut Ends In Solid Sixth-Place Effort

Connor Zilisch (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)

DARLINGTON, S.C. - Usually, when rookies come to Darlington Raceway, they find it’s tough sledding at the Track Too Tough to Tame. Connor Zilisch, however, isn’t just any rookie.

Being touted as one of the top prospects in the sport, Zilisch comes from a road racing background, and already has two victories on road courses in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, winning at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l in his series debut last year as well as Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, earlier this year.

Saturday’s Sports Clips 200 served as Zilisch’s first trip to Darlington, but the 18-year-old figured out the fast way around the 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval in a relative hurry.

Zilisch qualified 16th, but spent the early portion of the race learning and was in the top 10 for the latter half of the event, with help from two quick stops from his pit crew during the final stage.

He finished sixth, right behind three of his JR Motorsports teammates in Justin Allgaier, Ross Chastain, and fellow rookie Carson Kvapil, after advancing from 10th on the final restart.

“It’s great,” the Mooresville, N.C., said post-race of his team’s all-around effort. “Everyone I’m racing around has been here more than once. It’s really cool to come here and run top 10 and finish sixth. [I’m] really happy with how the race went.

“We struggled a bit (during) the first two stages. We were really tight, but we were able to make the right adjustments and get it really close at the end to where I wanted to be. I think we had a car to win if the race (distance) was a little bit longer.”

The youngster may be known for his road course prowess, but he is a contender anywhere he goes. He won the pole last month at Martinsville and swept both stages before he was spun from behind on two separate occasions.

Connor Zilisch in action at Darlington Raceway. (Jacob Seelman/Race Face Digital photo)

Darlington marked Zilisch’s fourth top 10 on an oval in just 10 oval starts. It’s difficult to find any weaknesses that the youngster might have, even with his relative inexperience compared to those he’s battling against for Xfinity Series supremacy.

“It’s just about learning and getting the most out of my car everywhere we go,” Zilisch said of his continued goals for the season. “I don’t feel like I have a track that’s a weakness for me, but there [are] going to be places [where] we go that I struggle more than others, and the first two stages I felt that here … just from a standpoint of struggling to really figure out what I needed out of the car.

“We figured it out in stage three, thankfully, and gave ourselves a good run at a tough racetrack.”

Of note, Zilisch carried a throwback scheme Saturday to Buddy Baker’s Crisco Oldsmobile that the NASCAR Hall of Famer drove throughout the 1987 NASCAR Cup Series season.

With his March win at COTA in his back pocket, there is less stress on Zilisch, as he is locked into the Xfinity Series playoffs and can learn easier without feeling as much intense pressure.

However, even with that in mind, he still maintains sixth place in the regular season point standings, just 23 behind longtime friend and fellow Chevrolet driver Jesse Love.

Zilisch and the rest of the Xfinity Series field head next to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, a place where the talented teenager was on pace to win last August in the ARCA Menards Series East before a mid-race crash eliminated him from contention for both the victory and the series championship.

Broadcast coverage of the SciAps 300 is slated for Saturday, April 12 at 5 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.