Heading into the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, expectations were high for Connor Zilisch.
Many believed that the JR Motorsports rookie had the potential to run up front, win multiple races and contend for a championship in his first full-time series campaign.
While Zilisch has done exactly that over the past seven months, at this point the question must be raised: did anyone really expect the 19 year-old to be this good?
With Zilisch’s dominant victory at World Wide Technology Raceway Saturday (Sept. 6th), he joins Sam Ard and Noah Gragson as one of only three drivers in series history who have won four consecutive races. In addition, the Trackhouse Racing development driver has now won seven of the last eight races, with nine total victories on the season. And he’s accomplished all of that before the playoffs have even officially begun.
Crossing the line behind Zilisch were fellow rookies William Sawalich and Christian Eckes, with Brandon Jones and Jesse Love rounding out the top five. Aric Almirola, Daniel Hemric, Parker Retzlaff, Corey Day and Daniel Dye rounded out the top 10.
The Winners
While Zilisch led 121 of the race’s 160 laps, he still faced fierce competition from Justin Allgaier, Love and Almirola throughout the night, and had to hold off a charge from Sawalich in the closing laps to score the victory. With Zilisch’s strong performance, he secured the regular-season championship and currently sits a whopping 59 points above the playoff cutline heading into the first round.
Sawalich may have come up short of making the playoffs this season, but the Joe Gibbs Racing rookie has certainly shown an uptick in speed as of late. The Minnesotan finished top five in both stages and held on to his track position throughout the night to earn his second consecutive runner-up finish.
The strong result also marks Sawalich’s first career top-five on an oval.
Another rookie who has shown great speed in recent weeks is Eckes, who matched his best career finish with a third-place result. The Kaulig Racing driver ran up towards the front for the majority of the event, and passed Almirola in the closing laps to secure the top-three finish. Eckes has now scored top-10 results in four of the last five races.
It was an impressive drive from Jones and Love, who both finished inside the top five despite qualifying 12th and 18th, respectively. Love in particular seemed to have strong pace, as he managed to work his way up to eighth by the end of the opening stage, and challenged for the lead on the final few restarts before settling for fifth.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Almirola has always seemed to run well on flat-tracks, and Saturday night was no exception, as the Cup Series veteran finished second in the opening two stages and seemed to be one of the few drivers who was capable of running down Zilisch on the long run. While Almirola only led two laps on the night and ended up finishing in sixth, the end result is certainly not indicative of the raw speed that the No. 19 Toyota showed throughout the race.
Lastly, it was a solid result for Retzlaff and Day, who finished in eighth and ninth, respectively. For Retzlaff it was only his second top-10 finish of the season after finishing runner-up at Rockingham Speedway in April, while Day scored his first career top 10 after running five previous races throughout the year for Hendrick Motorsports.
The Losers
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was Allgaier, as the JR Motorsports driver charged through the field during the opening green-flag run of the race, and then took the lead from Sawalich on a restart during stage two.
Despite having race-winning speed, Allgaier’s chances of victory evaporated after he sped on pit road at the start of stage three, and later suffered heavy damage in a restart wreck with 27 laps to go. The series veteran would manage to keep his No. 7 Chevrolet on the lead lap, but he would have to settle for a disappointing 28th.
Allgaier wasn’t the only contender who got caught up in the late-race restart crash, which was initially triggered when Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed lost third gear and couldn’t accelerate in the restart zone.
Other drivers who suffered heavy damage as a result of the incident included Nick Sanchez, Ryan Sieg and Creed’s teammate Sam Mayer. Sanchez and Sieg would go on to finish on the lead lap in 25th and 27th, while Creed and Mayer ended up in 30th and 35th, respectively.
Two other drivers who suffered unfortunate results were JR Motorsports’ teammates Sammy Smith and Carson Kvapil. Smith dealt with brake issues throughout the night and seemed to struggle to find speed for most of the race, while Kvapil was running just outside the top 10 when his engine expired on pit road after the end of stage one. Smith and Kvapil would be scored in 33rd and 37th, respectively.
Lastly, it was a disappointing night for Jeb Burton, who came into the race a steep 30 points below his cousin Harrison Burton on the playoff cutline, but would see his post-season hopes go up in smoke when he blew a tire in stage three, sending his Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet hard into the turn two wall. Jeb Burton would walk away unscathed, but the wreck would result in a disappointing 36th place finish.
Fuel for Thought
Now that the Xfinity Series playoff grid has officially been set, it’s a good time to make predictions as to which drivers will advance through the rounds and race for the championship at Phoenix come November.
With the enormous points cushion that Zilisch has built up over the regular season and the raw speed that he shows virtually every week, it’s hard to envision a scenario where he does not advance to the final four. But based on the rest of the field’s accumulated points (and the variety of tracks in the playoffs), I believe that the remaining three spots are totally up for grabs.
Looking at each driver’s performance throughout the season and how often they lead laps and contend for wins, my three picks to join Zilisch at Phoenix Raceway are Allgaier, Mayer and Love, but with Talladega Superspeedway looming in the Round of 8, I would also not be surprised to see Austin Hill or another driver with fewer playoff points win their way into the championship round.
Paint Scheme of the Week
Kole Raz made his Xfinity Series debut for AM Racing driving an eye-catching orange and blue paint scheme, with sponsorship from Cyclum NextGen Travel Centers. Raz would finish 34th after suffering brake issues early on in the race.
His FIRST @XfinityRacing TODAY at 7:30 ET! Be sure to tune in to watch @KoleRaz27 take on WWTR! pic.twitter.com/5OYmu3QgXk
— Cyclum NextGen Travel Centers (@CyclumNextGen) September 6, 2025
Where to Next?
Next week, the NASCAR Xfinity Series races under the lights at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee for the Food City 300 on Sept. 12. The event marks the first race of the Round of 12 of the playoffs, so the pressure will be on each of the playoff drivers and teams to run up front and score as many points as possible.
Last year’s running was won by Cole Custer, who led 104 laps en route to his second victory of the 2024 season. Coverage begins at 7:00 p.m. ET, with television coverage on The CW and radio coverage on the Performance Racing Network.
Jake Altmayer joined the Frontstretch team in 2025, assisting as a news writer and contributing to other weekly columns and articles, such as Friday Faceoff and Xfinity Breakdown. A 2024 graduate of DePaul University, Altmayer has closely followed NASCAR's national series (Cup, Xfinity and Trucks) for nearly a decade and has attended more than a dozen races over the course of that time. In his free time, he enjoys cycling, spending time with his loved ones, and listening to his favorite band, the Beach Boys.