Once every few years, a young talent emerges, poised to become a star.
Every few decades one will come forward who is given the label ‘generational talent’. Connor Zilisch doesn’t fit the description for either of these. In his short time on the NASCAR scene, it’s become clear he has high potential to be even better than the drivers that have been known as generational talents.
Zilisch is destined for greatness, and he is probably going to win the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship.
Before I explain all the reasons why this is true, I will add a disclaimer. If the championship format doesn’t change, Zilisch could expose its flaws like nobody has ever done before. Imagine a driver winning not five, not 10, not 15, but 20 races in a season, then going into the playoffs with a 60-point lead over second place.
Envision them advancing through the rounds of the playoffs and piling up more and more victories, before ultimately going to Phoenix Raceway, suffering a mechanical failure or getting wrecked by a backmarker on pit road and, as such, losing the championship.
Twenty or more wins and not the champion.
In the current format, it’s possible. An entire column could be written about how tragic that would be, or about it being appropriate, but I digress.
No driver in the playoff era has displayed the level of domination that I’ve described. But that level of domination is on the horizon, and we got a little taste of it last Saturday (Sept. 14) at Watkins Glen International. In a race that featured seven drivers that either currently compete full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series or have announced they will in 2025, Zilisch absolutely waxed the field.
He put on a clinic of epic proportions. By lap 6, his lead over Ty Gibbs grew to over a second. By the time the pit cycle began on lap 17, that lead had grown to over eight seconds. When the second stage began on lap 25, Zilisch restarted 13th. Just 10 laps later, he had moved up to fifth.
The only mistake made on the day by the 18-year-old was following the lead of Gibbs, a former champion. Gibbs bypassed the inner loop under caution, as did Sam Mayer and Zilisch. All three drivers were penalized and sent to the rear of the field. All three also quickly climbed the scoring pylon afterward as the others in front of them pitted for fuel, but Zilisch left Gibbs and Mayer in his dust.
The race was decided in overtime, making Zilisch’s fuel mileage a major question. Could he make it to the end? Mayer had the same amount of fuel, and seemed to stumble on the second-to-last lap. Zilisch, meanwhile, had enough left for a burnout after winning the race by, as NBC’s Mike Bagley put, it “a country mile.”
Did I mention this was his first-ever start in Xfinity? This is a field that included a man who has already been lauded as being in a league of his own on road courses and a man who already has 25 Xfinity starts under his belt: Shane van Gisbergen. In his first start, Zilisch was leagues above even SVG.
Some of you might be thinking, “Enough already, we get it, he dominated at Watkins Glen. No need to be like Cris Collinsworth and worship the guy. It was one road course race.”
Tell that to William Sawalich.
Sawalich is another 18-year-old driver who knows all too well what Zilisch is capable of. Sawalich has run 12 races in the ARCA Menards Series and won seven of them. The five races Sawalich didn’t win? Zilisch ran four of them, and won all four. In the races Sawalich has run without Zilisch in the field, he’s been downright dominant. But when Zilisch shows up, he’s beaten Sawalich in five of the six races. By the way, only one of those six races came on a road course. Five were ovals.
Zilisch also has wins in the LMP2 car in the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Rolex 24 at Daytona. This young man has been winning in just about everything he drives.
There is potential for the NASCAR fanbase to begin to root against this young man. It could be another instance of the Jimmie Johnson effect, or looking globally, the Max Verstappen effect. When there are so many drivers in the field, a majority of spectators always want someone else to win. When a particular driver begins to win routinely, it can become a bit boring, and fans begin to hope to see the dominant driver fail.
We are going to see that with Zilisch next year. I would implore you to buckle up and enjoy the show. As someone who has been following NASCAR and other sports for decades, I’ve begun to appreciate these dominant performances. They’re rare, and they should be appreciated as long as they last. It sets the bar for the rest of the field and could spur some changes fans have been wanting for years.
Zilisch is a talent unlike any we’ve seen in a long time. So many teams in the field have been fielding drivers that may not be the best talent available, but offer some combination of talent and funding. If Zilisch is stinking up the show and lapping most of the field each week, there would at least be additional incentive to make changes to the business model. The end result could be a greater meritocracy where talent takes a higher priority compared to funding than it does today. It’s safe to say most fans would be happy about that.
At 18 years old, Zilisch has already made it abundantly clear he will be a future Cup champion. But first, in 2025, he’ll run full-time in the Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports. He’s going to be an overwhelming favorite to win the championship. His performance could usher in a cast of haters, but I hope most followers of the series will relish what they are about to witness.
Years later, they’ll be able to look back and reminisce about what an epic show it was, and how they watched the legend before he made it to the top.
Steve Leffew joined Frontstretch in 2023 and covers the Xfinity Series. He has served honorably in the United States Air Force and and lives in Wisconsin.