Connor Zilisch reclaimed the lead late to win the Mission 200 at Watkins Glen International in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Zilisch’s win is his sixth of the season and his second in as many years at Watkins Glen.
Zilisch’s win, however, was marred by an incident in victory lane postrace. Zilisch fell from his car while starting his celebration. He was taken to the infield care center by ambulance; The CW reported on its broadcast that he was awake and alert, and he has since been transported to a local hospital.
Sam Mayer wrapped up his solid day with a runner-up effort. Sammy Smith finished third after briefly claiming the lead in the closing stages.
Austin Hill and Carson Kvapil rounded out the top five, while Justin Allgaier, Austin Green, Christian Eckes, Brandon Jones and Harrison Burton completed the top 10.
From the pole, Zilisch pulled away to a lengthy early lead to open the race. As his JR Motorsports teammate Shane van Gisbergen battled a slew of drivers in his rearview, Zilisch steadily held a commanding advantage.
Cognizant of the battle between he and Zilisch for the regular-season title, Allgaier ran long to end the first stage and collected the stage victory when Zilisch and other leaders came down pit road. Zilisch reassumed the point on the other side of the first stage break.
With the second stage leading into a 42-lap run to the checkered, most contenders adopted similar strategies that saw them all pit after the stage’s end. This allowed Zilisch to win stage two and collect the points that come with it, ahead of van Gisbergen, Mayer, Hill and Kvapil.
The final run to the checkered seemed to be all about the frontrunners positioning themselves within their pit windows to make it to the end. With Zilisch proving dominant for most of the afternoon, his competition would have to hope for some good fortune.
That good fortune fell upon van Gisbergen, who got a timely caution just after his pit service. This cycled van Gisbergen to the front of those contending cars as he stayed out under the yellow while others like Zilisch were forced to pit.
Restarting third as the first car on fresh tires, van Gisbergen quickly disposed of those on older tires and took the lead with only 27 laps remaining, as Zilisch began climbing back to the front.
Methodically, Zilisch carved through the top 10 and cleared Hill for second with 23 laps to go, setting up another duel between he and van Gisbergen for yet another road course victory.
On equal tires, Zilisch once again established superior pace to van Gisbergen.
However, van Gisbergen was able to put to use all his road racing wiles and keep Zilisch behind him as Hill closed on account of the lead pair’s battle.
As Hill finally caught the lead pair, it all came to a head when van Gisbergen was sent spinning hard into the wall off of turn 7 as a result of both his ambitious blocking and Zilisch’s aggressive braking.
While van Gisbergen’s day came to an abrupt end, Zilisch restarted as the leader with 15 laps remaining. Entering turn 1 on the restart, Hill drove in deep and nudged Zilisch out of the groove. As Hill scooted past into the lead, Zilisch fell back to fifth just as the caution flew once again for debris.
Hill and Michael McDowell made up the front row when the green came back out with 11 laps remaining. McDowell powered around the outside of Hill into turn 1 to claim the lead as Zilisch started another mad charge to the front from fifth.
Zilisch battled back to third less than a lap after the restart and found himself in the perfect position to reassume the lead when McDowell and Hill began to race each other hard for the top spot. Zilisch pounced and quickly pulled away.
With eight laps to go, McDowell and Hill’s ongoing battle went sideways when Hill sent McDowell slamming into the guardrail as he tried to reenter the track from the overflow off of the carousel and contacted McDowell’s left rear quarter.
McDowell’s crash blinded several drivers behind him, causing several other leaders to be wrapped up in the incident, including Tanner Gray and William Sawalich.
With the track blocked, trailing cars continued to pile in. The final count tallied a total of 16 cars in a crash that prompted a red-flag period.
When the race resumed after a lengthy delay, Smith briefly took the lead before Zilisch did what he had done all day and overcame adversity when he retook the lead shortly thereafter, and he would not look back en route to victory lane.
Watkins Glen Xfinity Results
The Xfinity Series takes a week off before returning to the track at Daytona International Speedway on Friday, Aug. 22, at 7:30 p.m. ET via The CW.
