{"id":170085,"date":"2025-08-23T21:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/170085\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T21:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:26:10","slug":"connor-zilisch-shows-true-colors-in-emotional-look-at-nascar-journey-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/170085\/","title":{"rendered":"Connor Zilisch shows true colors in emotional look at NASCAR journey – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Connor Zilisch pulled back the curtain on the difficult sacrifices he was forced to make in order to fulfill his dream of someday becoming a full-time NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series driver.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Trackhouse Racing announced that Zilisch<\/a> will pilot the No. 99 Chevrolet during the 2026 Cup Series campaign<\/a>. The seat was previously held by Daniel Suarez, who mutually agreed to part ways with the organization<\/a> following this season.<\/p>\n

Zilisch first became part of Trackhouse Racing through their driver development program in January 2024. While racing for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series this year, he’s racked up eight wins in 27 starts, including victories in five of the last six races.<\/p>\n

Yet Zilisch’s journey to motorsports stardom hasn’t been without its challenges. Speaking to reporters shortly after being named a full-time Cup Series driver, the 19-year-old conceded that he questioned at times if he wanted to surrender his childhood and pursue a stock-car racing career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough every moment \u2014 the good, the bad \u2014 there were many times I questioned why I left school, left my friends to make this commitment to go to the Cup Series and try and chase the dream of racing in motorsports,\u201d he said. \u201cI never knew what was ahead of me, and there were times five years ago where I thought I was just going to go to college and live the life of a normal kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the heels of a pivotal conversation between his father and NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick, however, Zilisch knew he was destined for the Cup Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin Harvick asked my dad, \u2018What’s your plan with this kid?\u2019 And my dad was like, \u2018Well, he’s going to race for another year or two, and then he’s going to go to college,\u2019\u201d Zilisch recalled. \u201cAnd Kevin told my dad, he’s like, \u2018You can’t do that.\u2019 So first of all, thank you to Kevin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvick is far from the only person who\u2019s played an impactful role in Zilisch\u2019s budding career. \u201cThere’s a lot of people that have been a part of this journey with me. I have way too many people to thank,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS:<\/p>\n

\u201cJR Motorsports, first of all, for giving me this opportunity this year to race with them. Dale, Kelley, you guys have given me a great home for the last six to 12 months, and I’m very grateful for that. Pinnacle Racing Group, my ARCA team, they took a chance on me to put me into the National Series in NASCAR and let me race in the ARCA Series with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSilver Hair Racing, before that, and Trans Am gave me my first ride in a stock car. There’s just been so many people along the way, and back to even my karting days, when I was with Gary Willis, and we spent months in Europe together, he’s basically my father for a good portion of my life. So yeah, today is a really, really special day for me. I never thought this day would come, and yeah, it certainly feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connor Zilisch pulled back the curtain on the difficult sacrifices he was forced to make in order to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":170086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[5216,32683,97297,4423,1406,97296,62,20045,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-170085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-connor-zilisch","9":"tag-kevin-harvick","10":"tag-kevin-harvick-influence","11":"tag-motorsport-section","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-nascar-journey","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-trackhouse-racing","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115080199170002182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}