While much of the attention during NASCAR’s Championship Weekend was on Denny Hamlin’s Sunday heartbreak, Saturday belonged to another driver who met the sport’s brutal honesty head-on. The NASCAR Xfinity Series finale was supposed to be Connor Zilisch’s coronation march—a victory parade to cap a 10-win season. Instead, it became a very public lesson in how cruel racing can be when the biggest trophy is on the line.
The 19-year-old phenom—too young to rent a car, but old enough to nearly win a national championship—watched the moment slip away in slow motion. What should’ve been his victory lane turned into a tear-streaked scene beside his racecar, the kind of image that gets burned into NASCAR memory for all the wrong reasons.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ve come to terms with what’s happened,” Zilisch said in Scottsdale Tuesday, where he was appearing for NASCAR’s year-end awards ceremony. “At this point I can’t do anything about it, so there’s no reason to hang on to it. It’s life. The sun came up Sunday morning, and the world kept spinning.”
That’s the kind of thing you expect to hear from a 40-year-old veteran, not a teenager who just had his biggest dream yanked out of reach. But that’s Connor Zilisch in a nutshell—mature, grounded, and, above all, unflinchingly real.
When the championship slipped through his fingers, he didn’t lash out or point fingers. In fact, when Jesse Love—who went on to win the title—asked if he was mad, Zilisch just shrugged.
“I went up to him in Victory Lane,” he said. “At the end of the day, he did nothing wrong. He asked me, ‘Are you mad at me?’ and I was like, ‘No, I don’t have any reason to be mad at you, dude. You just executed when you needed to.’”
Instead of sulking, Zilisch joined in on the celebration. “Yeah, I celebrated with him, and we had fun,” he added. “That’s just part of it.”
Still, Saturday night wasn’t easy. “It was upsetting. Saturday night was tough. I had a lot of emotions and thoughts I didn’t expect to have,” Zilisch said. “But at the end of the day, we did everything we could. We gave it our all. We just fell short. I went to dinner with my team that night—we had a good time and celebrated the year we had.”
Even the biggest names in the sport noticed, including the driver who broke Denny Hamlin’s heart. “Kyle Larson texted me,” he said. “He told me this isn’t going to change your career. I know it sucks. He wrote me a nice message. It means a lot to have people like that reach out.”
Now, the kid who dominated Xfinity in 2025 will move up to the Cup Series next season, facing an entirely different beast. “Man, Cup Series is tough,” Zilisch admitted. “I’m really going in with no expectations. I just want to learn throughout the year. Hopefully by Homestead I’m a better driver than I was at Daytona. If I can do that, I’ll be happy.”
And while the championship sting might linger for a bit, he’s already keeping perspective.
“My dad told me, ‘You gave it your all this year and I’m proud of you,’” Zilisch said. “He didn’t even talk about losing—just the year we had. I know I’ve got a lot more years ahead of me, and that excites me. I woke up Sunday morning, the sun still came up, and my life kept going. I just have to be proud of the year we had.”
So yes, the weekend didn’t go the way he wanted. But if there’s a silver lining, it’s this: Connor Zilisch already sounds like someone who’s going to win a lot more races—and handle the heartbreaks like a pro. In NASCAR, that’s not bad company to keep.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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