Zilisch still finishes 10th despite rocky day in O’Reilly race at Chicagoland

Despite multiple setbacks, Connor Zilisch finishes 10th in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Chicagoland. Zilisch also scores the fastest lap of the race in the No. 1 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports.

Due to qualifying being cancelled, Zilisch started on the pole for the Cuervo 300. His second pole of the season in the O’Reilly Series. Zilisch practiced in fourth before thunderstorms delayed the race to late at night.

When the green flag dropped, Zilisch took off and led all the laps in a caution free stage one. Zilisch went to funkytown until he ended up in torture city. He suffered a fuel pump issue during pit stops which dropped him to the back.

Zilisch climbed through the field to finish ninth in stage two.

In stage three, Zilisch then blew a tire on lap 132 while running seventh. The tire carcass came off which brought out the caution.

Then after the next restart, Zilisch spun on his own in turns one and two on lap 156.

Despite these setbacks, Zilisch still drove back into the top 20 and top 15 on the next few runs. On the final overtime restart, Zilisch went from 14th to 10th after a long day.

Reflecting on his day, Zilisch said, “it was definitely a wild race yknow we just had to keep our head down and got a good finish out of what was a long day. Frustrated with the situation and myself, I definitely dug myself in a deeper hole after we got sent to the back, but I wish we didn’t run out of fuel it would’ve been a whole different night.”

Zilisch also discussed how his first race at Chicagoland will help him with track time preparing for the Cup Series race.