When you’ve finally made it to either the NASCAR Cup or Xfinity Series, you can’t wait to achieve your “firsts.” This includes your first win (if you’re lucky enough), your first pole (again, if you’re lucky enough), and the kind of “first” that you dread, but which is almost inevitable: namely, your first big crash, if you’re not lucky enough to avoid it.
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Thus far this season in the Xfinity Series, Connor Zilisch has checked off all those boxes. He has three wins, four poles, and has been involved in three wrecks. The first two came at Daytona and Atlanta to start the season, followed by his worst and most painful wreck yet at Talladega in the Ag-Pro 300.
Zilisch was leading on the final lap when he was involved in that wreck. It was so bad that he not only suffered significant injuries, he also was forced to miss the next race at Texas Motor Speedway. Zilisch joined Corey LaJoie and Ryan Flores on this week’s edition of the Stacking Pennies podcast and reflected on that dark Saturday this past April.
But there’s an irony in what Zilisch called the hardest crash he’s ever had. Since the ‘Dega debacle, his JR Motorsports team has been on a monstrous roll forward. In the seven races since, he’s finished in order: 2nd, 2nd, 5th, 1st, 4th, 2nd and 1st.
“We’ve been on a run,” Zilisch said. “It (the back injury) sucked for about two weeks and I still get pains every now and then, but most of the time it’s good.”
The ‘Dega wreck was the first time in Zilisch’s career that he suffered any type of lingering injury. Admittedly, he could have been hurt worse, but that wreck was bad enough. “It was a weird feeling,” Zilisch said. “I had never gotten the wind knocked out of me even in a race car.”
After trying to avoid yet still making contact with best friend Jesse Love, Zilisch hit the outside wall hard. He said, “It (the pain) was immediate, like, as soon as I hit the wall. This sounds crazy, but when I was in the car, when I hit the wall, I closed my eyes and I was inside of my own body and I saw my back shatter.
“Like it was the weirdest. It sounds crazy but I swear when I hit the wall, like I saw something, and I immediately knew. I was like, ‘Something ain’t right,’ and I went to the care center and they cleared me and then it was not good.”
Zilisch admits feeling awkward in Victory Lane at Texas
Zilisch wound up missing the Texas race as a competitor, but he still made the trip as an observer. Then, when fill-in driver Kyle Larson won the race, Zilisch experienced another uneasy feeling, but a bit different from the first few minutes after his wreck at Talladega.
He said, “Going to Victory Lane was the most awkward thing in my life and I was like, ‘I never want to have to do this again.’ I went to Victory Lane and I’m like, ‘Where do I stand? Do I walk away now? Do I stand here? I don’t play any part in this.’ … This sucks.”
And so far, knock on wood, Zilisch hasn’t had to go through that again.
