Connor Zilisch and his Trackhouse teammate Shane van Gisbergen showed up to Coronado with the two fastest cars on the property. SVG had the pole. Zilisch was running right there with him all day. Then one restart, one corner, and both cars were done. Zilisch wasn’t exactly diplomatic about who he blamed.
“I just saw it happen, but yeah, it’s unfortunate for us,” he said. “Our car was really fast today. Both Shane and I were really fast collectively. I really hate it for everyone at Trackhouse and Red Bull.”
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The guy who collected them was Austin Hill, driving the No. 33 for Richard Childress Racing. Coming into Turn 1 on the restart, Hill locked his brakes up from deep on the inside and slid wide. There was nowhere for anyone else to go. He drove straight into the front-running Trackhouse cars and ended all three of their days right there. Somebody asked Zilisch if that was just racing. He didn’t let Hill off easy.
“He was pretty far from the wall and didn’t leave any space,” Zilisch said. “I’d call it a lot more aggressive than that.”
He was fine, for the record, and he made sure to credit the cars for that.
“Concrete walls are no joke,” he said. “But thankfully with the safety of these cars, it’s pretty rare that you don’t feel okay after a wreck.”
Here’s the thing: this wasn’t some freak accident. Hill does this. Go back to Watkins Glen, where he wouldn’t lift coming off a corner and drove straight into the back of Michael McDowell, taking out half the field behind him.
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Or Indianapolis, where things got physical with Aric Almirola, and NASCAR didn’t buy the “racing incident” defense, five laps down on pit road, plus a one-race suspension for intentional wrecking. Even on ovals like Michigan, he’s clipped cars trying to force gaps that weren’t there yet, spinning himself and everyone nearby.
The guy can flat-out drive, good enough to be Richard Childress’s franchise player in Xfinity. But that same fearlessness that wins him races down there keeps blowing up in his face the second the stakes go up.
Connor Zilisch Keeps Running Into Bad Timing
Funny enough, Hill himself proved it that same weekend. Hours before he wrecked Zilisch’s Cup car, he won the Xfinity race at that exact track, a gutsy last-lap pass that showed precisely why this style works when it works.
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For Connor Zilisch, none of this comes down to speed. He’s got plenty of that. Weeks before, at Charlotte, he jumped into a Truck Series ride on barely a week’s notice, started 24th after rain washed out qualifying, and fought a truck that wouldn’t turn the way he wanted. A drive-through penalty for jumping a restart should have buried him.
A lucky caution bailed him out instead, giving his crew time to throw on fresh tires. From 25th with 11 laps to go, he carved his way to 3rd before a late wreck froze the race under yellow.
Different series, different car, same story. The speed’s always there. Something else keeps getting in the way. Coronado was just the latest version of it, and this one cost him a real shot at winning a Cup race.
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