Connor Zilisch made his drive at Circuit of The Americas much more impressive than it had to be. After starting from the pole, Zilisch collected a penalty for pitting on a closed pit road when a caution came out just before he entered, sending him to the rear. The 18-year-old driver then had to drive from 32nd back up to the lead and survive a challenge from his teammate.
But he did just that to score the win in Saturday’s Focused Health 250 at the Texas road course, his second Xfinity Series victory in his young career. It was certainly not an easy climb and was not without incident, as Zilisch got into Corey Heim hard, causing significant damage to his own car and sending Heim spinning. Despite the damage, Zilisch was still quickly able to get to the front.
“A lot of it was just how fast I knew my car was,” Zilisch explained. “This car was just so fast and props to everyone at JR Motorsports. We had a really fast car that made it a little bit easier for me today, but I certainly didn’t make it easy on myself. Little bit frustrated with how I drove but glad the result came at the end.”
Zilisch acknowledged that the heavy contact with Corey Heim was overly aggressive.
“I mean, it was not smart of me and I apologize to those guys,” he said. “But I’m glad it didn’t end our race and we were able to keep going.”
And once Zilisch got to the front, he had to pass and then face down a challenge from his JR Motorsports teammate Carson Kvapil, a former late model driver and road course novice who impressed as the only driver truly able to challenge the eventual winner. Kvapil was only finally despatched when his right-front tire went down in the closing laps, forcing him down pit road and relegating to a 23rd-place finish.
For Kvapil, the result was certainly a disappointment, especially considering the speed in his car and strong performance in a new racing discipline for him. Much like Zilisch, he had to climb through the field.
“Just seemed like as soon as the green flag dropped we were really good. We got turned around early in the race and had to kind of claw our way up from the back. Had to claw our way back up from there,” he explained. “Ultimately, just need to pop that one in the back pocket and kind of learn from it.
“Our Johnny Morris Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet was obviously super fast and hate that we didn’t get the result there,” Kvapil said.
If it’s any consolation, his JR Motorsports team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr took to Twitter after the incident to congratulate his driver.
“Great drive for Carson Kvapil today,” Dale Jr tweeted. “Surprised us all I’d imagine.”
William Byron ultimately came home second, moving up one position when Kvapil fell out of contention.
“No,” Byron said as to whether he could have caught Zilisch. “I was giving it everything. We just felt like we lost touch with those guys on the short run and then it was too hard to make it back. That’s just the way it goes. Really appreciate these guys letting me come run, and I learned some things about the track and if anything just pushed myself harder.”
Sam Mayer came home fourth for Haas Factory Team, followed by Austin Hill in fourth. Hill had been leading in the final stage before both Zilisch and Kvapil got around, and explained that he had nothing for the pair of them.
“I mean, our Global Industrial Chevrolet was falling off,” Hill acknowledged. “I was making some decisions inside the racecar to mess with the brake bias and I ended up putting too much rear brake to it and I started wheel-hopping.
“The two guys behind us were faster than us all day,” Hill acknowledged. I think our Global Industrial Chevrolet was a solid fifth-to-eighth-place car all day and we ended up fourth, so a solid day for us. But we’ve got to go back to work and figure out what we need to better with our car.
“Honestly, I think it’s probably 60 or 70 percent me and then 30 or 40 percent our car. There’s areas I can work on and be better inside the car on these road courses. We’ve been so close so many times but we always seem to come up short, and very frustrated with a fourth-place finish right now,” he concluded.
Christian Eckes rounded out the top five. Jesse Love, Taylor Gray, Ross Chastain, William Sawalich, and Blaine Perkins all earned top-ten finishes.
This weekend, Zilisch will be competing in the Cup Series at COTA on Sunday as well in his series debut. While a win certainly starts the weekend on the right foot, he acknowledged that he had no expectations ahead of a 14th-place start in that race.
The Xfinity Series returns at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, March 8th.
FULL RESULTS
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