The future is bright at Trackhouse Racing, even as personnel changes at season’s end.
With the team’s first driver Daniel Suarez departing, Ross Chastain will move assume the role of longest tenured driver. Then there’s the current rookie — soon to be NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year — Shane van Gisbergen, fresh off of his fourth win of the season at Watkins Glen International.
And of course, there’s the young phenom Connor Zilisch, who will likely fill Suarez’s seat next season (and it would be shocking if he doesn’t).
All three drivers have a burning desire to win races, and it shows on and off the racetrack.
But in the case of van Gisbergen and Zilisch, has the yearning to win come at the expense of each other?
Fans consistently have looked forward to the road course races in the NASCAR Xfintiy Series this season to watch the two Trackhouse teammates — battling in Xfinity under the JR Motorsports banner — duke it out to be the King of the Road.
In the three events that they’ve squared off, it’s ZIlisch who leads the head-to-head in wins, two to one. But both drivers have earned at least one of their wins at the expense of the other, leading to some hurt feelings.
At the Chicago street course, both drivers ironically went against each other in co-sponsored WeatherTech and Red Bull cars. The two of them lined up on the front row for the final restart of the afternoon. As they sailed into turn 1, van Gisbergen pushed wide, forcing Zilisch, still to his outside, into the wall.
While the damage was minimal for both drivers, it was enough to hinder Zilisch from getting back to the No. 9, and he ultimately had to settle for second as van Gisbergen took the victory.
It was clear in his post-race interview that the young Zilisch was not too happy with the way his teammate raced him.
“I had no chance there he stuffed me in the wall,” Zilisch later said in a radio interview. “I’ll remember the way he raced me.”
Zilisch later added that he looked “forward to racing him next week at Sonoma” Raceway, implying that maybe some hurt feelings would carry over to Napa Valley. This however, was not the case, as while the two ended up battling each other for the win yet again, there was no malicious contact between the two, and Zilisch went on to take the win.
That brings us to this most recent run-in between the two at Watkins Glen.
it became clear yet again that to win the race, drivers were gonna have to go through Nos. 9 and 88 to do so. However, between the two of them, Zilisch appeared to be the faster car. The two engaged in a great battle throughout the final stage, but van Gisbergen was arguably holding Zilisch up, which allowed Austin Hill to close on both of them and join the battle.
Coming to 17 laps to go, Zilisch had a nose underneath van Gisbergen as the threee drivers approached the final corner.
What happened next is up for interpretation. One could argue that Zilisch dumped van Gisbergen, while there’s also an argument that van Gisbergen left Zilisch no room to reenter the racing groove.
Either way, contact was made, and suddenly, van Gisbergen’s car was junked in the final corner.
To Zilisch’s credit, it didn’t sound intentional, as he spend nearly the rest of the day hung up on whether or not the crash was his fault.
”Don’t lie to me if I f**king wrecked him,” Zilisch said over the radio at one point.
In fact, as he was coming to the checkered flag to take the race win, he asked his crew once again to tell him the truth about whether or not he was at fault for the crash.
For van Gisbergen however, his position felt clear upon leaving the infield care center.
Of course, their story on Saturday (Aug. 9) took an immediate backseat after the race when Zilisch fell off his car while celebrating the victory, breaking his collarbone in the process.
Fortunately, Zilisch is expected to make a full recovery, and it’s clear there’s no hard feelings between he and van Gisbergen, as the Kiwi talked with Zilisch about how he suffered a similar collarbone injury.
But it’s clear there’s a desire for the two of them to beat the other on the racetrack. And as the old saying goes, if once is a fluke, twice is a pattern.
The two have come together more than once on the track, and both have felt strongly about how they were raced. Adding salt to the wounds for both, the other driver went on to win the race they got roughed up in.
Neither driver seems like a driver that holds bitter grudges against anybody — especially a teammate — but it certainly does feel like the two won’t give each other an inch on the racetrack moving forward.
And that’s huge, given Zilisch’s inevitable promotion to the Cup Series coming as soon as next season, which will pit them together every week as opposed to a few races here and there.
Aiding this is the fact that van Gisbergen signed a multiyear contract extension heading into Watkins Glen weekend, allowing Trackhouse to lock down both drivers in the long run.
There are two things that would be fun about a potential rivalry between the two. The first is that they both have the talent to beat each other. It wouldn’t be a one-sided rivalry. Zilisch could smoke van Gisbergen at some tracks, while van Gisbergen would snap right back at others. Then there are times where the two will battle for 17th and make it entertaining.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, team owner Justin Marks will likely allow it.
Marks came to Chastain’s defense in 2022 when Chastain had run-ins with several drivers, and said that he wasn’t gonna ask his to change his driving style just because he ruffled some feathers.
No, Marks will allow an “in-‘House” rivalry (as one might call it) go down as long as the results will show and it will better the team as a whole. And he knows the two will be ones to watch for, if nothing else, when the Cup Series rolls into a road course.
As long as Marks’ cars don’t get torn up and van Gisbergen and Zilisch can shake hands at the end of the day, maybe a teammate rivalry could drum up some viewership.
After all, NASCAR could definitely use it for its top series.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter. He has also assisted with short track content and social media, among other duties he takes/has taken on for the site. In 2025, he became an official member of the National Motorsports Press Association. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight coordinator in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.