Car: No. 88 (Cup) / No. 1 (O'Reilly Series) | Team: Trackhouse Racing / JR Motorsports | Manufacturer: Chevrolet
Status: Full-time Cup + part-time O'Reilly Series | Hometown: Weddington, North Carolina | Age: 19
Career Highlights
Connor Zilisch is one of the most hyped young talents in NASCAR history. The Weddington, North Carolina, native won 11 NASCAR Xfinity Series races in 2025 before graduating to the Cup Series full-time in 2026 with Trackhouse Racing, driving the No. 88 Chevrolet.
In addition to his Cup schedule, Zilisch competes part-time in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series with JR Motorsports, sharing the No. 1 Chevrolet with Carson Kvapil. On April 11, 2026, Zilisch won the Suburban Propane 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway — his 12th career O'Reilly Series victory and first of the 2026 season — after crew chief Rodney Childers made the call to stay out on old tires with 28 laps remaining while Kyle Larson pitted. At Texas on May 2, Zilisch won Stage 2 and led 48 laps before fading to 21st in the final segment after the car gave up whatever it had been giving him in the middle stages. He also was the third car in the Lap 105 three-wide moment with Kyle Larson and Brent Crews off Turn 4. At just 20 years old, Zilisch is already drawing comparisons to generational talents who made immediate impacts at the sport's highest level.
Background
A Charlotte-area native, Zilisch rose through karting and sports car racing before entering stock cars. His 11-win Xfinity season in 2025 was one of the most dominant campaigns by a driver under 20 in NASCAR history.
Zilisch finished fifth in the NASCAR All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway — the only rookie inside the top five. The race was won by Denny Hamlin from the pole. Read the recap.
Recent Coverage
Zilisch won the O'Reilly Series race at Watkins Glen (Race 13 of 2026), adding to his part-time JR Motorsports campaign.
South Boston Speedway has been the front door of professional stock car racing since 1957. From Junior Johnson's first NASCAR win to Peyton Sellers' eight track championships, the four-tenths-mile oval in Halifax County, Virginia, has produced more Cup Series drivers per square foot than any track in America.
The track they call the Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars is .363 miles of asphalt in Newton, North Carolina. From Ralph Earnhardt to Connor Zilisch, the smallest classroom in the sport keeps producing its biggest names.
Both ARCA Menards Series regional tours run on Saturday May 2: the Cook Out Music City 150 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway at 9 p.m. ET, the Bill Schmitt 173 at Shasta Speedway at 11:30 p.m. ET. Both on FloRacing and the NASCAR Channel. One announcer crew, three time zones, one Charlie Krall.
Rodney Childers made the call to stay out on old tires with 28 laps left. Connor Zilisch made him look like a genius, holding off Kyle Larson to win the Suburban Propane 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Karting world champion at eleven. Daytona and Sebring winner at seventeen. Eleven Xfinity wins before turning twenty. Connor Zilisch has the most complete résumé in NASCAR — and he's learning what Cup racing costs.
Travis Kvapil won a Truck Series championship in 2003. Twenty years later, both his sons won CARS Tour titles in the same season. Now Carson is chasing an O'Reilly Series championship while Caden dominates the CARS Tour — running the same ladder, one rung apart.
JR Motorsports runs programs at every level of stock car racing — Late Models, O'Reilly Series, and selected Cup starts — all under one roof in Mooresville. The development pipeline has already produced three Cup-level champions. The system is the story.
The 2026 Dash 4 Cash program closed Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, and the season's final $100,000 bonus went to Brent Crews — eighteen years old, in his rookie season, driving the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota. Crews finished fourth in the race; none of the other three D4C-eligible drivers finished ahead of him. It was his first such bonus and the year's last one.
The CW is running its Cup-driver guest-analyst rotation again for six O'Reilly Series races. Denny Hamlin opens at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Connor Zilisch — the 10-win standout from The CW's inaugural season — gets Nashville. Ross Chastain at Pocono, AJ Allmendinger at Sonoma, Kyle Busch at EchoPark, Bubba Wallace at Indianapolis.
Chase Elliott won his second Texas Cup race Sunday by 0.407 seconds over Denny Hamlin, with a final-restart side-draft push from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman clearing him through Turn 2. Bowman finished P3, Tyler Reddick took P4 on a two-tire stop, and Connor Zilisch quietly logged his best Cup oval finish (P16) in the JRM development car. Hendrick has now won four of the last six Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway.
Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR All-Star Race from the pole at Dover Motor Speedway on Sunday, beat his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe in a side-by-side fight to the line, and became the third driver in the sport's history to win the All-Star at multiple tracks. Asked what he'd do with the $1 million check, he said he'd give it to his mother — a line that landed harder given his father's death in a December fire.
Stephen Doran's pit box thought it was over. Twenty-four laps later, Shane van Gisbergen took the checkered flag at Watkins Glen by 7.288 seconds — his seventh career Cup win, every one of them on a road or street course.
Connor Zilisch ran Jesse Love down on fresher tires Saturday at Watkins Glen, then passed him in the final corner of the final lap to win the Mission 200 by 0.262 seconds — Zilisch's third consecutive NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series win at The Glen and his thirteenth career win.
Kyle Larson held the bottom for 17 green-flag laps and beat his JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier to the line by 0.293 seconds at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday. Allgaier — the points leader, three-time winner this year, sitting on the pole — got to Larson's bumper. He just couldn't get around him without contact, and he wasn't going to make contact. JR Motorsports went one-two. Allgaier extended his championship lead to 121 points anyway.
Dover Motor Speedway hosts the NASCAR All-Star Race for the first time in the event's forty-one-year history this Sunday. The format is three segments, 75 / 75 / 200 laps, with no All-Star Open and a Pit Crew Challenge that doubles as Saturday qualifying. Seventeen drivers are already locked into the 26-driver final segment.
Kaden Honeycutt comes into Dover Friday night as the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points leader after his first career Truck win at Watkins Glen — same-day ARCA and Trucks sweep included. The 29-point lead over Chandler Smith gets its first concrete test on the Monster Mile, with a brand-new Goodyear right-side tire designed for the surface.
Kaden Honeycutt won the ARCA Menards General Tire 100 at Watkins Glen on Friday afternoon. Then he won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Bully Hill Vineyards 176 in overtime over Connor Zilisch — becoming the second driver in history to take an ARCA race and a Truck race on the same day, joining Sam Mayer's 2020 Bristol sweep. Honeycutt now leads the Truck Series championship by 29 over Chandler Smith.
Justin Allgaier brings the championship lead to Saturday's Dover BetRivers 200 (640 points, +155 over Sheldon Creed). Connor Zilisch brings the last win, having passed Jesse Love in the final corner of the Mission 200 at Watkins Glen by 0.262 seconds for his third straight O'Reilly Series win at The Glen. The brand-new Goodyear right-side tire designed for the Monster Mile's concrete decides the rest.
Cleetus McFarland pulls double duty as driver and grand marshal Saturday, ex-F1 driver Kevin Magnussen joins Trackhouse PROJECT91 for the inaugural San Diego race, and NASCAR's Navy mini film "Race the Base" drops Friday on Prime Video. Three off-track storylines worth knowing before Michigan.
Justin Allgaier has led more laps at Pocono than anyone in O'Reilly Series history and brings a 179-point cushion to Saturday's MillerTech Battery 250. He just doesn't have the trophy. No driver over 30 has won here in seven races, and the last three winners are all back in the field.