Having grown up a road-course racer, Connor Zilisch has long dreamed of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race.
Already, at 17 years old, he’s proved he may have what it takes.
This year alone, Zilisch has visited victory lane at two of the most famed IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship events — the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Driving for Era Motorsports in the LMP2 class, Zilisch became the second-youngest driver to win the twice-around-the-clock contest at Daytona Int’l Speedway in late January. He’s also been a consistent force in the Mazda MX-5 Cup and dominated the first race of the Trans-Am TA2 Series at Sebring (Fla.) Int’l Raceway in late February.
A week ago, Zilisch turned his attention to stock car racing and made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut at Circuit of The Americas with Spire Motorsports.
He qualified on the pole and finished fourth in Saturday’s XPEL 225, despite a few hiccups during the 46-lap race.
“I’m hungry for more,” Zilisch said in a social media video shared by Spire Motorsports. “Going in, there was a lot of question marks and I feel like after the first weekend, a lot of those question marks go away.”
Despite the recent surge of success he’s had on road courses, Zilisch wasn’t all too sure about how he’d adapt to muscling the bulky Chevrolet Silverado around the tight twists at COTA.
“It wasn’t too much different than I was anticipating it to be, which was a good thing for me,” said the Trackhouse Racing development driver. “I feel like I can learn and grow and move on and continue to get better as a driver in the Truck Series if I know what I’m racing.”
He is slated for two additional Truck Series events with Spire Motorsports — Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway — as well as four races in the Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports.
But before Zilisch can step up to NASCAR’s second-level series, he’ll have to wait around for his 18th birthday (July 21) to pass. The North Carolina native will make his Xfinity Series debut at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) Int’l a few months later on Sept. 14.
The dose of NASCAR racing Zilisch plans to experience this year, in both Trucks and Xfinity, plays into the new dream he’s been entertaining ever since being introduced to the stock-car world.
“Recently, my number one goal has been to become the youngest Cup Series champion,” Zilisch said. “Honestly, I feel like that’s a possible goal. It’s definitely not gonna be easy…the Cup Series is far from easy. But that’s definitely my number one goal.”
As it stands, Bill Rexford remains the youngest Cup Series champion after winning the 1950 title at 23 years, 7 months and 15 days old.
Zilisch, 17, has roughly six years to break that record.