INDIANAPOLIS— Entering the Circle City 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Connor Zilisch had won both races he attempted with the premier ARCA Menards Series.
The status quo remained in place on Friday evening with Zilisch prevailing for his third consecutive victory on the main platform. Doing so required precision from Zilisch across several late-race restarts, as he was tasked with fending off his burgeoning rival William Sawalich.
Knowing that Sawalich would not pull any punches, Zilisch utilized all the advice he obtained from Pinnacle Racing Group and Chevrolet to ensure he could stay perfect in the ARCA Menards Series for another week.
“This Silver Hare Racing/Pinnacle Racing [Group] Chevrolet was so fast,” Zilisch said. “I kind of messed up two restarts in a row, but luckily I got a third shot at it. I could just hear Scott Speed and Josh Wise in the back of my head telling me what to do. We’ve prepped for this race for weeks now and it feels good to have that prep pay off and get my team a win.”
Zilisch’s triumph continues what has already been an amazing 2024 for him, with his other accomplishments including LMP2 class victories in both the Rolex 24 and 12 Hours of Sebring.
Although he comes from a road racing background, it has not taken long for Zilisch to find his comfort zone with the ARCA Menards Series. A three-win season in the ARCA Menards Series East helped Zilisch build a 17-point advantage over Sawalich in the point standings prior to Friday’s combination event.
Zilisch showed confidence early in the 200-lap race with a bold, but clean dive on Lavar Scott that gave him the lead until the halfway break. A poor restart forced Zilisch to follow Sawalich for most of the second half as he patiently waited for an opportunity to make a run at the top spot again.
It took three restart attempts, but Zilisch performed the same move that worked on Scott earlier in the day to overtake Sawalich for the final time with 21 laps remaining. Zilisch then executed a flawless jump in overtime on the bottom line to celebrate another victory with Pinnacle Racing Group.
Sawalich’s stumble on the last restart allowed Andres Perez to usurp him for the second position, bolstering his points lead in the process. Even though he is still searching for that elusive first victory, every strong performance gets Perez closer to the ARCA Menards Series title.
“We’re happy with the result in the end,” Perez said. “It was a tough race and we lacked pace in the beginning. We had to get as much as we could during the last restarts, but I think we’re happy with second. We’ll keep pushing hard.”
Perez knows obtaining a victory will be a challenging objective, especially with Zilisch now cleared to run more ARCA Menards Series events.
With Zilisch turning 18 years old on Monday, he is expected to embark on a busy schedule to close out the 2024 season. This will include more events in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series along with his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at Watkins Glen International, driving for JR Motorsports.
Every start in the ARCA Menards Series provides Zilisch a chance to test himself and observe his own limitations. Past excursions with Sawalich earlier this year gave Zilisch insight on how to approach his final restarts Friday evening.
Zilisch never intended to give up the bottom line to Sawalich.
“I just wanted leverage,” Zilisch said. “When I’m on the bottom, I have more control than when I’m up top. As long as I beat [Sawalich] to the start-finish line and got a good run, I knew I could slide myself and get clear off [turn] two. It’s all about leverage in these games and me and [Sawalich] have a little bit of history, so I didn’t want to take a chance.”
Now with another victory on his growing resume, Zilisch is setting himself up perfectly to claim the East Series title and accumulate more success over the rest of the 2024 campaign.
Sawalich settled for third after dominating the second half of the Circle City 200, with Scott and Gio Ruggiero completing the top five. The rest of the top 10 consisted of Kris Wright, Marco Andretti, Greg Van Alst, Dean Thompson and Isaac Johnson.