A week prior, Connor Zilisch felt like he was pushed out of the way. Saturday at Sonoma, he pushed back and took the NASCAR Xfinity win ahead of Shane van Gisbergen.
It was a battle between the two drivers throughout the race. Van Gisbergen edged out Zilisch for the pole and the two swapped the lead on track, with Zilisch leading a race-high 45 laps and SVG leading 24 of the 79-lap event, driving away from the rest of the field in a class of their own.
When the pay window opened, though, Zilisch was in the prime position. He led the entire final stage and had the win in sight in the closing two laps. In an echo of the finish last week at the Chicago Street Course, van Gisbergen made contact multiple times in those final two laps, but this time Zilisch wasn’t pushed out of the way and never surrendered the lead despite the intense pressure.
“Yeah, just, a lot of focus, and just doing my best job for 30 laps straight,” Zilisch said of what won him the race. “It’s really tough to be saving fuel, saving your tires, and have a guy like SVG breathing down your neck, but very grateful to have such an awesome group around me.”
Though he might be an 18-year-old series rookie facing off against the Australian Supercars legend who has set the NASCAR world on fire on the road courses, Zilisch is no slouch himself. He won his class in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in his first attempt, proving his road course skill, and the win marks his third just halfway through his rookie season in the Xfinity Series and his fourth in the series overall.
Despite having missed a race because of a back injury sustained at Talladega, Zilisch is fourth in the points standings, just 69 points back from points leader and defending champion Justin Allgaier with the same number of wins.
“Looking forward to the rest of the season, glad to get our third win of the year, and looking forward to Dover next week,” Zilisch said. “It’s the 98th win, and I really want to get 100 for [team] JR Motorsports. Really looking forward to the future with JR Motorsports, it’s been such an awesome year and looking forward to getting the championship, hopefully, in November.”
The driver who came out of the exchange second certainly didn’t seem too disappointed, and seemed less frustrated than Zilisch was when he finished second in Chicago.
“Really fun race,” van Gisbergen said. “Congratulations to Connor, I enjoyed battling him, and good practice for tomorrow. Second sucks, but I had a really fun race, I enjoyed myself, and that’s why I race cars.”
For his part, van Gisbergen suggested that he had the car to beat Zilisch but was just unable to find a way around him, even with the bumper taps in the closing laps.
“My car was really good on the long runs, especially in that last stage. It just got better and better,” he described.
If Zilisch and van Gisbergen were in a class of their own, with fastest laps half a second quicker than any other driver in the field, then the battle in the pack was for third. That battle was won by Joe Gibbs Racing rookie William Sawalich, for whom third is also a best career finish in the Xfinity Series.
“It was a good run for us in our GR Supra,” Sawalich said. “Can’t thank the guys enough.”
An 18-year-old rookie, the same age as Zilisch, Sawalich struggled as his rookie season progressed, with seven straight finishes outside of the top twenty. Sonoma is a significant turnaround for that team and a boost to the driver’s confidence. As for what would have been required to get the win, Sawalich acknowledged that he just didn’t have the same pace.
“I guess just long run pace,” Sawalich described what was lacking in his car compared to the lead pair. “We could kind of stick with them for ten laps and be a little faster and match laptimes, but I think overall I just made some tiny mistakes over the long run that they probably wouldn’t make.”
Behind Sawalich, Nick Sanchez and Riley Herbst rounded out the top five. Justin Allgaier, Taylor Gray, Carson Kvapil, Sammy Smith, and Sheldon Creed all earned top-ten finishes.
In contrast to last week’s race at Chicago, the only cautions at Sonoma were for the stage breaks, with no major incidents drawing out the yellow.
The Xfinity Series returns at Dover Motor Speedway next Saturday, July 19th.
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