Connor Zilisch made his Texas Motor Speedway debut this weekend by competing in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Saturday afternoon. The 1.5-mile speedway is one of the last tracks that the Trackhouse Racing driver hasn’t had a start on prior to this weekend.
On Friday, the 19-year-old made a return to the No. 1 JR Motorsports Registix Chevrolet for practice and qualifying under cloudy skies. Zilisch had a strong qualifying effort of fourth heading into Saturday’s race.
When Saturday rolled around, there were completely different track conditions with more sunshine and temperatures in the 70s, a complete change from the day before.
As the green flag flew for the 200-lap race, Zilisch was a contender through the majority of the race. He battled for the first stage win, but had to settle for second to his teammate and Stage 1 winner, Justin Allgaier.
In the second stage, Zilisch would be out front, taking the lead at Lap 57, leading through Lap 93, and winning the stage.
At the beginning of the final stage, there was a thrilling battle for the lead with Brent Crews and another JR Motorsports car of Kyle Larson. Both Larson, Zilisch, and Crews were three wide coming off Turn 4. In doing so, the three cars nearly wrecked on the frontstretch.
Larson was able to breakaway with the lead, while Zilisch began to fall back through the field as his car started to plow and get tight after slight contact. Unfortunately, as a result, he would have a flat right front tire go down and had to make a unscheduled pit stop to fix the damage. This would put a hamper on his day and could never recover. Zilisch would finish 21st, one lap down.
Meanwhile, Zilisch qualified in the 12th position for the Cup Series race for Sunday afternoon, with a lap time of 28.430 seconds at 189.940 mph, which is his best qualifying outing since his Cup Series debut last year at the Circuit of the Americas where Zilisch started 14th.
