Watkins Glen is not only where Connor Zilisch made his Xfinity Series debut, it’s where he scored his first series win. While a year on the 19-year-old has emerged as NASCAR’s hottest talent and racked up victories on all different track types, Watkins Glen remains a favorite.
On Saturday, he was able to defend his perfect winning record at the track in both of his attempts with a dominating win from the pole. However, his celebrations were cut short with a scary fall in victory lane as he attempted to climb on the roof of his car.
Zilisch slipped and fell with his foot trapped inside the car, hitting the ground hard. He was immediately attended to by the AMR Safety Team and concerned team members, before being placed on a stretcher and carried to an ambulance.
Zilisch was transported to a local hospital for further evaluation and later posted an update on X, confirming that he had been released and was on the mend.
Thank you everybody for reaching out today. I’m out of the hospital and getting better already. Thankfully, CT scans for my head are clear, I just have a broken collarbone. Thankful for all the medics for quick attention and grateful it wasn’t any worse.❤️
— Connor Zilisch (@ConnorZilisch) August 10, 2025
The fall was just the dramatic curtain call to a race that featured chaotic scenes throughout. Watkins Glen is sometimes referred to as the superspeedway of road courses, and the track lived up to its monicker with seven cautions, including one that brought out the red flag.
The most notable was a third-round knockout fight between Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen, his teammate at JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series and at Trackhouse in the Cup Series. The two road course standouts have battled previously, with round one going to SVG at Chicago and round two going to Zilisch at Sonoma.
There’s been trouble between the two before: at Chicago, Zilisch ended up in the wall when SVG ran him wide in the final restart, with Zilisch having to settle for second. The third round turned it up another notch, however, as SVG ended up in the wall, and this time he couldn’t continue on for second.
Zilisch had the faster car throughout the race, but SVG benefited from pitting early just as a caution came out, cycling him to the lead when the rest of the field had to pit under the caution cycle. Zilisch made quick work cutting through the field to get back to SVG’s bumper and, after a several-lap battle for the lead where Zilisch had the faster car but couldn’t find a way around, he ran wide out of the penultimate corner on lap 66 of 82 and got to the inside of SVG.
However, van Gisbergen ran tight to the inside and didn’t leave enough space for Zilisch to re-enter the track. Zilisch tagged SVG’s right-rear as he rejoined, sending the New Zealand driver spinning around and into the wall hard.
The incident took van Gisbergen out of the race, and he ended up in 31st position. SVG shared his thoughts after getting released from the infield care center before he had a chance to review a replay of the crash.
“Yeah, not ideal,” SVG summed it up. “Just gutted, really, gutted for the JR Motorsports guys. Our car wasn’t great, but we’d still managed to get ourselves in good position… Pretty average way to end it.”
Zilisch asked his team just after the wreck and after he took the checkered flag whether he was at fault for the incident; both times he was reassured over the radio that it was not.
While his now-traditional rival was out of the picture, Zilisch was not free and clear. He restarted next to Austin Hill, who gave him a bump entering turn 1 sending Zilisch wide and allowing Hill to take the lead as Zilisch fell to fifth. Zilisch bumped Hill when the next caution flew later that lap to express his displeasure.
Zilisch made quick work getting back to the front anyway, needing just two laps on the next restart to get past Austin Hill as he battled Michael McDowell. With Zilisch in front, Hill continued to battle McDowell hard before he got into him out of the carousel, turning him as the pair tried to rejoin the racing surface coming out the carousel.
The incident happened in one of the fastest parts of the track, right in front of the field coming out of a corner, and drivers struggled to check up in time. In all, NASCAR determined that 11 cars were involved and the red flag flew for over 45 minutes to clean up the carnage.
“I don’t want to say anything dumb until you go back and watch it all, but I felt like I got two good restarts there and was able to take the lead clean. I didn’t rough up the 21 [of Hill] at all, I didn’t feel like. But it just kind of felt like he just kept trying to move me in the carousel and, there, he wasn’t even alongside, he just turned me,” McDowell described the incident from his perspective.
The crash collected several contenders including William Sawalich, who had battled up front with SVG and Zilisch in an impressive day for the rookie.
When the race was finally restarted with four laps to go, Zilisch finally got the clear air he needed and he pulled out several fast laps for a final margin of victory of 2.326 in front of the field.
Sam Mayer, Sammy Smith, Austin Hill, and Carson Kvapil rounded out the top five, with three of the top five from JR Motorsports. Justin Allgaier, Austin Green, Christian Eckes, Brandon Jones, and Harrison Burton all earned top-ten finishes.
With the win, Zilisch takes lone possession of the top spot in the Xfinity Series points standings with just three races to go in the regular season – a huge accomplishment considering he missed a race due to injuries sustained at Talladega and could not pick up any points from the following race at Texas.
The Xfinity Series returns on Friday, August 22nd at Daytona International Speedway for a night race.
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