JOLIET, Ill. — It’s no secret that the 2026 season has been a rough one for Connor Zilisch. Even with two O’Reilly Series wins earlier in the year at Bristol Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen International, it’s been a year plagued by bad luck, slow cars and poor finishes in his Cup Series rookie campaign.
His O’Reilly starts have largely been a reprieve from that misfortune, and on Saturday night (July 4) in the O’Reilly Series’ return to Chicagoland Speedway, Zilisch had a car more than capable of scoring win number three on the year.
Zilisch started on pole by virtue of a qualifying rainout, and his JR Motorsports No. 1 was an untouchable rocket in the first quarter of the race, as he led every lap and won stage one by more than five seconds over second-place Jesse Love.
The stage end was when the cartoon anvil fell on Zilisch once again, as his car lost fuel pressure right before pit road was about to open. The No. 1 grinded to a halt in turn 2 under caution, and he could only watch helplessly as the entire field passed right on by.
“It just kind of caught me by surprise,” Zilisch said after the race. “It was unfortunate to get us on the back foot.”
Zilisch managed to stay on the lead lap despite the ordeal, though he plummeted from the lead to 27th. That loss of track position only proved to be a temporary setback, as he gained 18 spots in 38 laps to finish stage two in ninth.
The back half of the top 10 was about as far as Zilisch reached, however, as he was unable to climb back into the top five after the fuel pressure issue.
“We had a really fast car in stage one and I honestly don’t know where that went,” Zilisch said. “I thought we were going to have a really fast car the whole night and just didn’t.”
Still, Zilisch stayed in the mix and remained within striking distance of contention at the start of the final stage. But it didn’t take long for the wheels to completely fall off once again, as Zilisch suffered a flat tire on lap 133 and a spin on 156.
“I just never was able to get back up to the front once we got back there,” Zilisch remarked. “(In) dirty air, just didn’t drive quite as good. Made mistakes and cost our team. Pretty frustrated with myself. Obviously, the night didn’t go the way we wanted; just how it’s been.”
Zilisch impressively managed to nab a 10th-place finish despite everything that went awry, but overall, it’s a frustrating end to a race that started with race-winning speed and a disappointing end to his final O’Reilly start of the year with JRM.
“We had some ups and downs (this year), two wins in nine starts,” Zilisch said. “I feel that’s a pretty decent record, but we didn’t quite run as consistently well as I would have wanted to throughout the year.
“A lot of it was my doing, it’s hard to bounce back and forth when you’re running Cup full time. I feel like I could have done a lot better job managing that, but all in all, I’m really proud of the No. 1 team. They’re pretty high in owners’ points, and I feel like I’ve done job getting them points when I can and giving them a chance for the owners’ championship.”
With his O’Reilly slate over, Zilisch can now put his full focus on the remainder of the Cup schedule. He’s fresh off of his first Cup top 10, a seventh, at Sonoma Raceway last weekend, and while it’s been a tough year so far, sometimes all it takes is one good result to get the ball rolling.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
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