There is only one thing left on Connor Zilisch’s 2025 checklist after tonight. He wins at Gateway and claims the Xfinity Series regular season title. Nine wins this NASCAR season are a record for a rookie driver. Another accolade to add to Zilisch’s Wikipedia page.
No matter how it got done, Connor Zilisch has four wins in a row. Parker Kligerman finished the Daytona race and win, but Zilisch gets the credit for starting the race. Only Sam Ard and Noah Gragson have won four races in a row in the Xfinity Series before.
Appreciate what you are watching, folks. 14 races in a row with top-five finishes. Eight wins in that time, four pole awards. We are witnessing greatness in the making. 121 laps out front tonight, Zilisch fended off the field with late restarts in this race.
What a race, what a regular season. This is his championship to lose now.
After the race, Connor Zilisch took time to talk about the win and the championship. For a little context, he was only four years old the last time the Xfinity Series raced at Gateway. Now, he’s a winner at the track!
“Yeah, that one was stressful. Man, that’s awesome. Four in a row,” Zilisch said after the finish. “I think that’s seven of the last eight for our WeatherTech Chevrolet team. … Yeah man, that’s awesome. Four in a row. Lot of fans here, it’s awesome to come here to St. Louis and bring the Xfinity Series back here. So, thank you guys for showing out tonight, and yeah, that’s awesome. We’re going to celebrate this, and the regular season championship.”
During the race, late restarts tested Connor Zilisch. He fought through them to take the win. Hungry and desperate rookies, William Sawalich and Christian Eckes, wanted any opportunity to beat Zilisch tonight. However, it never came.
So, how does Zilisch keep the hot streak going? While he’s talented enough to do it, it takes good race cars as well.
“Man, this is going to be tough to keep up, honestly,” Zilisch continued. “It’s rare that you can go on a run like this, and every week I show up thinking, man, this is the weekend that we just go run 8th and just aren’t great. But every weekend, we show up and we’re a winning racecar, and my pit crew executes, my team executes and everybody does their job and we end up doing burnouts on the frontstretch. So, yeah, it’s awesome to be able to do this and win this many races. This is the most wins JRM has ever won in a year as well. So, really cool to do that for them as well.”
A really interesting top-10 tonight. Big night for Parker Retzlaff, Daniel Hemric, and Corey Day, all with top-10 finishes.
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