In January 2024, the Trackhouse Racing NASCAR Cup Sequence workforce co-owned by former racer Justin Marks and Cuban-American rap star Pitbull signed Connor Zilisch to a multi-year improvement deal.
Marks is kind of the visionary among the many NASCAR workforce house owners, making his race workforce function as an efficient advertising instrument that enables him to do issues in a different way – like bringing Shane van Gisbergen throughout from Supercars in Australia. Now his newest mission is Zilisch, a former karting star who has been tearing up a number of sequence throughout America on all sort of tracks, regardless of his tender years.
A winner of a number of nationwide kart titles in his youth, Zilisch in 2020 grew to become the primary American to win the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy that was earned by Ferrari Formulation 1 driver Charles Leclerc in 2011. Zilisch switched to automobile racing the next 12 months and in 2022 was the Mazda MX-5 Cup’s prime rookie. Aged 15, he additionally took the primary steps on his path to inventory vehicles, working some native Late Mannequin occasions and bagging a few wins.
Final 12 months, Zilisch virtually scored a maiden ARCA win on his debut in NASCAR’s fourth-tier sequence – after main for 34 laps – at Watkins Glen. However he was handed on the ultimate nook by present Xfinity Sequence star Jesse Love, who nerfed his means forward as Zilisch battled towards a damaged sway bar.
Zilisch additionally starred in Trans-Am, turning into the sequence’ youngest-ever race winner and taking 5 wins. In Mazdas, he scored 4 victories in 10 begins. It was subsequently no shock that Marks was .
Attributable to his age, Zilisch can not compete full-time in a nationwide NASCAR-sanctioned sequence; he’s solely allowed to contest occasions on smaller oval tracks and street programs. He presently leads the ARCA East standings by 17 factors from reigning champion William Sawalich, Toyota’s 17-year-old prodigy who’s signed to Joe Gibbs Racing.
Within the ARCA Menards nationwide sequence, Zilisch has already taken two wins from as many begins, his most up-to-date coming after an unbelievable duel for victory with Sawalich at Iowa. His worst end within the sequence stays that Watkins Glen runner-up spot from 2023…
Zilisch has proven pace in each setting he has been uncovered to in his younger profession
Picture by: Rusty Jarrett / NKP / Motorsport Images
And nonetheless the success has stored rolling in. Zilisch took pole place on his NASCAR Truck Sequence debut at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas by twice smashing the lap document, and completed fourth towards drivers who’d been racing within the sequence earlier than he was born. He gained a CARS Late Mannequin race at Hickory Motor Speedway, the three/8-mile North Carolina brief oval that boasts to be the ‘Birthplace of NASCAR stars’.
However maybe his most spectacular feat to this point has been taking LMP2 class victories within the two most prestigious races on the IMSA SportsCar Championship calendar. He adopted up his win on the Daytona 24 Hours alongside sportscar stalwart Ryan Dalziel, IndyCar rookie Christian Rasmussen and Period Motorsport’s gentleman driver Dwight Merriman by storming the Sebring 12 Hours, regardless of by no means having pushed a prototype or downforce automobile beforehand.
As you’d anticipate from a 17-year-old prodigy who’s gained a ton of races and signed to a NASCAR Cup workforce, he doesn’t lack self-confidence or cockiness. However he speaks very effectively and is suitably humble about what he’s achieved.
“Each weekend I’ve been driving one thing completely different, racing on filth, ovals or street programs, I at all times discover a option to make issues work”
Connor Zilisch
“It’s undoubtedly been a shock to me,” says Zilisch of his rise to prominence. “It’s been a picture-perfect begin to the 12 months in all actually, having the ability to win as many races as I’ve.
“Profitable prestigious races like Daytona and Sebring has been surreal. Actually, I couldn’t have dreamt of a greater begin to the 12 months. Clearly I’ve nonetheless obtained an extended option to go, I wish to shut out championships, in sportscars and on the oval facet of issues. I really feel I’ve undoubtedly obtained an extended option to go.”
Regardless of hailing from Charlotte, NASCAR’s residence metropolis, Zilisch has been a longtime fan of sportscar racing.
“I by no means got here from open-wheel or something with downforce, however I grew up in go-karts and lots of people let you know they really feel as quick as something you may drive,” he provides. “My background fits it effectively, regardless that my path now’s chasing NASCAR, however I at all times dreamed of racing stuff like this after I was a child.
“I at all times watched the large endurance races, like Daytona, and I at all times needed to race within the prime stage of IMSA sometime. Issues have modified for me now, chasing the dream of racing in NASCAR, however [driving the ORECA-Gibson 07 LMP2 car] does match my roots and I really feel I drive it effectively, which is why I’ve been capable of finding success so rapidly.
Two wins from the primary two IMSA rounds have been a glittering introduction to the head of sportscar racing in North America for Zilisch
Picture by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
“Each weekend I’ve been driving one thing completely different, racing on filth, ovals or street programs, I at all times discover a option to make issues work. I suppose I’ve executed it a lot it comes naturally at this level.”
Zilisch is, nevertheless, life like that his profession really lies in inventory vehicles, the place the large bucks are made and fame lies. He describes his chosen NASCAR profession path as “the cheap factor for me and my future as a race automobile driver”.
“The chance [with Trackhouse] principally landed in my lap,” he explains. “It was very arduous to say no to signing a long-term contract with a Cup Sequence workforce – getting the chance to go NASCAR racing, and hopefully attending to race within the Cup sooner or later.”
When Autosport asks if he’d prefer to proceed his extra-curricular actions – like Kyle Larson manages with mid-week dash automobile racing – Zilisch seems a bit wistful that he’s going to have to offer it up.
“I want I might proceed to do it, proper?” he replies. “If there was greater than 52 weekends in a 12 months, I’d like to! Primarily based on the best way issues are going, I’m not going to have the ability to race full-time on this stuff. I positive do wish to preserve doing one-off stuff, like Daytona, hopefully I’ll be capable to do massive races like that also.
“I used to be super-fortunate to get this chance as a result of that is in all probability the final 12 months the place I’m bouncing from automobile to automobile. I assume subsequent 12 months I’ll be settled down in a single sequence, racing for a championship over the 12 months. I’m not laser-focused on something but, however it will likely be powerful if I’m racing full-time in one of many NASCAR championships to race a lot on the IMSA facet of issues.
“Solely final 12 months, I used to be working within the lowest class in IMSA [MX-5 Cup] and I used to be simply in search of a means by, perhaps a GT4 automobile or no matter, and I obtained the chance to go right down to Daytona and shootout for a seat in an LMP2 automobile, which I actually didn’t have too excessive hopes for, as a result of I’d by no means pushed a automobile with downforce earlier than.
“It was such a unique expertise for me, however I made it occur and obtained the chance with Period Motorsports this 12 months, I’m positive glad they took an opportunity on a child my age. Clearly, I’d by no means executed this earlier than at this stage, and it was dangerous for them, but it surely definitely paid off within the first two races of the season.
Zilisch expects to have a extra typical racing schedule in future years
Picture by: Gavin Baker / NKP / Motorsport Images
“It’s cool to have team-mates who assist me, like Ryan Dalziel and Dwight [Merriman], they’re such a cool group of individuals. It’s undoubtedly been wild, and means past what I might ever have anticipated.”
Historical past teaches us that for each teenaged prodigy famous person driver like Joey Logano, who was famously hyped by NASCAR veteran Mark Martin as ‘sliced bread’, there’s a Brad Coleman.
Found at an indoor karting centre by Le Mans 24 Hours winner Value Cobb, Coleman would set an age document by ending the Daytona 24 Hours at simply 16. He launched into a inventory automobile profession, driving in ARCA after which the Busch (now Xfinity) Sequence competitors the identical week that he graduated from highschool.
“It’s undoubtedly been wild, and means past what I might ever have anticipated”
Connor Zilisch
Signed by Joe Gibbs Racing on a driver improvement programme, after they have been all the trend, he shared a automobile with the likes of Tony Stewart and Aric Almirola in 2007 and produced 5 top-10s from 17 begins in his rookie part-time season.
Regardless of displaying promise over his four-year profession, with a few sixth-placed finishes in 2010, he by no means achieved that breakthrough win. His profession got here to a halt, by an absence of sponsorship, after 57 Xfinity-level races and one Cup begin at Michigan.
Coleman admits he obtained right into a “psychological funk” throughout that point, and his profession dying knell was a sponsor deal to modify to Roush Fenway Racing in 2011 falling by the day earlier than the announcement. Disillusioned and depressed, he didn’t watch a race on TV for the following 5 years, and have become a driving teacher for 15-year-olds that he jokes was “far more terrifying than any race I’ve ever been in”.
Coleman’s story must be each a cautionary story and motivator for Zilisch, simply as a lot as Daytona 500 winner and Cup Sequence champion Logano – who grew to become NASCAR’s youngest-ever Cup winner at 19 with Gibbs – as somebody who now enjoys the trimmings of a millionaire racing driver’s life-style with Team Penske.
However, if Zilisch can preserve his successful behavior going, and his ego in examine as his profession progresses, then the sky actually is his restrict.
Zilisch gained at Sebring with Merriman and Dalziel, however accepts his profession will seemingly take him extra in the direction of inventory vehicles
Picture by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images