Remember when Connor Zilisch was 32nd in NASCAR Xfinity Series points after the season’s second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway?
Probably not. The rookie picked up a win the next week at Circuit of the Americas, wiping out any damage he did in the first two weeks and locking himself into the playoffs. The victory shot him all the way up to 16th in the standings.
Zilisch’s climb continued despite a back injury in a crash at Talladega Superspeedway, which forced him to sit out the race at Texas Motor Speedway and let Kyle Larson drive his No. 88 Chevy to a win.
After struggling with mechanical issues and a tire rub after contact with Dean Thompson, Zilisch was the top finishing Xfinity Series regular at Charlotte Motor Speedway, second behind William Byron.
“We had a tire rub, and I don’t think that was helping us,” Zilisch said. “We had a motor that was stumbling all day long. In a couple of ways, second with stage points is a good day, but you always want more.
“… I felt really good. Sometimes, it’s good to get a few weeks off to reset. I’m proud of this group. We had a really good car today and just came up a little bit short.”
Even with the crash at Talladega and the race he missed at Texas, Zilisch has overcome his nightmare start to the year and enters the second half of the regular season sixth in the point standings.
His teammate Justin Allgaier is leading the regular season points battle by 72 points over Austin Hill. That’s great — if you don’t take into account that the advantage over Hill was 100 points just three races ago at Rockingham Speedway.
Pace hasn’t been an issue for Allgaier. It’s what he’s done with it — or failed to do with it — over the last two weeks that’s taken the wind out of the defending champion’s sails. Allgaier led 99 laps at Texas Motor Speedway and was set up to be in a battle with the aforementioned Larson in the late stages.
Then, Allgaier clobbered into the lapped car of Kris Wright and wound up wrecked in the infield grass. Wright got his fair share of criticism for being well off the pace as well as failing to hold his line. That said, Allgaier admitted, rightfully so, that it’s still his responsibility to find a way around Wright.
“Ultimately, it falls on my shoulders,” Allgaier said. “I think they had some damage, and he was having a tough time with his racecar. I don’t know. I’m trying to catch the 88 [Larson] and trying to push, and ultimately put myself in a bad situation.”
At Charlotte, Allgaier looked well on his way to redeeming himself until a caution with 22 laps remaining. While his top competition in Byron pitted for tires, Allgaier overruled his team’s call to pit for new Goodyears in favor of track position. The result wasn’t as catastrophic as Texas, but it was another decision by Allgaier that cost him a win, with Byron able to cruise by on fresher tires.
“I’d love to walk out of here and be standing here in victory lane and be saying, ‘Man, I made the right call, and it was awesome,’” Allgaier said. “But it’s just not the case today.
“I’ll own this one. At the end of the day, they told me to pit. They had the plan, and it’s a bad decision on my part.”
Yes, Allgaier already has two wins to his name this season. Yes, Allgaier still has well over a one-race lead over the rest of the Xfinity field in the regular season standings. But the mistakes at Texas and Charlotte will come back to bite him because of the valuable playoff points he lost. If he wins even just one of those races, Allgaier is within two playoff points of Hill’s series-leading 21.
Who’s behind those two and can close the gap with a victory or a few stage wins? Zilisch with seven.
Suddenly, it seems all the momentum in JR Motorsports has transferred from its veteran defending champion to NASCAR’s ‘next big thing’ in a matter of just a few weeks.
Is the sky falling for Allgaier? No, far from it. He’s bound to win again, maybe a few times over, between now and the playoffs. The difference is now he’ll have some added competition in Zilisch. For as much speed and skill the rookie has displayed this year — he leads the Xfinity Series with three poles, by the way — the finishes haven’t been there.
If he can have runs like he had at Charlotte minus the run-ins and mechanical problems, there might be a competition for JR Motorsports’ top dog when the playoffs roll around.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in Fort Wayne, Indiana covering minor league, college and high school sports. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.
I find it hard to believe that Allgaier would begrudge any young driver their success. He has watched many young drivers go from JRM to success in Cup. I think he content where he is, and with the years of success he has had.
everyone knows jrmotorsports is the team to be with to make move into cup series in a year or two. truex (chance2), keslowski, and elliott are cup champions that raced for jr. other cup drivers have come through jrmotorsports into cup.
they get engineering support from hendrick. i think they know the value of performance and public image and pleasing the sponsors as they all seem to bring money to the table with them when they join jrm.
allgaier still burns with the fire to win and be a multi-championship. we all saw how jr paid back justin’s loyalty by putting him in the cup car they ran at daytona. shame it charters are so much, would be interesting to see how jr ran against childress’s team. but i doubt that will happen any time soon.