Zilisch’s win 3-Peats the O’Reilly Series race at Watkins Glen
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Connor Zilisch passed Jesse Love on the final corner of the final lap to three-peat the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race to win the Mission 200 at Watkins Glen.
This is his 13th career win and his second series this season. He now has seven victories coming on the road courses in the O’Reilly Series.
Zilisch joined Marcos Ambrose and Terry Labonte with his third straight Watkins Glen victory — the most consecutive wins all-time in the series.
Rain wiped out morning qualifying, so the NASCAR metric bumped Zilisch to 17th on the grid. He swiftly carved through the field to seize the lead before the end of Stage 2 and took the stage win.
From there his day was further complicated when he and teammate Shane van Gisbergen tangled on pit road during Stage 2 stops.
The contact knocked van Gisbergen out of contention as he would spend the rest of his 37th birthday grinding to an eighth-place finish.
Fortunately for Zilisch, he escaped undamaged and set his sights on his main rival of the day in Brent Crews.
After completing half the final stage the two pitted on back-to-back laps in the with Zilisch cycling out in front after he was behind.
Crews needed more fuel on the stop than Connor and a fuel miscue compounded the amount of time in the pits for him which dropped him behind the No. 1.
Now the two-time defending race winner had one obstacle left in running down the fuel-saving Richard Childress Racing Chevrolets up front.
He reeled them both in well before the end and looked like he would cruise pass them for the win but that was about the change.
Zilisch stalked leader Jesse Love and made his move with four laps to go then disaster struck. A hairy exit through the carousel caved his right-front fender into the tire and ripped the splitter clean off the car.
Love, still nursing his fuel, lifted off the pace slightly more because of the damage but it was not enough to keep him back.
Zilisch regrouped stayed patient and found his groove back. He closed within a car-length and made his decisive move in the final corner where Love came in too hot and ran wide and the rest is history.
“That was driving as hard as I could for all 30 of those laps just trying to make up that gap.” said Zilsich.
“I wasn’t going to move Jesse in the last corner there and he got in deep and I able to get by.” he added.
He took the safe way out of the car as his Cup Series team owner Justin Marks left a cushion. “It really means a lot to get another one here and get out of the car safely to be able to get on the ground…” he jokingly added.
Notable Results
On the other side of the coin, Jesse Love took his time to get out of his racecar after he failed to hold off the road course ace.
“When you nickel and dime it right, there’s 100 little and small mistakes that let him get close. At the end of the day the glaring piece of it is I had a bad corner. I had a bad corner.” A dejected Jesse Love commented after coming home in second-place.
Behind him, Taylor Gray gained valuable points after his third-placed finish.
Ross Chastain completed his second race of the weekend with a top five in fourth.
Brandon Jones rounded out the top five while his teammate Brent Crews finished behind him in sixth.
Crews won his first career stage win after starting fourth. He logged the fastest lap of the day and looked to be the man to beat until his car lost speed late in the final stage.
Parker Retzlaff continued to show how series he and Viking Motorsports are as Chase contenders. He has shown great speed at every track type this season as he finished seventh.
Austin Green and Justin Allgaier rounded out the top ten.
Rajah Caruth, who captured his first career series pole after obtaining via the NASCAR metric, came home 11th.
Neither Haas Factory Team driver cracked the top ten. Sam Mayer salvaged 12th, while Sheldon Creed’s day unraveled after Allgaier squeezed him into a violent airborne moment.
The damage was terminal to his race and he limped home a lap down in 29th.
Finally, both Patrick Staropoli and William Sawalich engines expired on them early in the race as five cars failed to finish.
Below is the full results of the Mission 200 at The Glen.
Full Results
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Ryan Kemna View All
Ryan Kemna is a photojournalist for The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2025.
Currently residing in the Minneapolis, MN, area, Kemna brings his passion for motorsports, photography, and a good story to readers.