The 2025 NASCAR Xfinity season kicked off in a rather unorthodox manner. Two Superspeedway races followed by a road course. But one thing common in all three is unpredictability. Look at the recent Circuit of the Americas race, Connor Zilisch won, but not before his teammate Carson Kvapil gave him a run for his money. And we all had our eyes on Zilisch to win this one, but honestly, it was no cakewalk.

His journey from pole to the checkered flag was filled with penalties and upsetting a lot of drivers. And even Zilisch knows he went a bit overboard, “I made way too many mistakes … I was glad we were able to fight back.” And it’s understandable that Zilisch kind of needed this win. Not only because it’s a road course, and that’s where he thrives. But also to kind of salvage his poor start to the season (27th in Daytona, 34th in Atlanta). But the 18-year-old needs to be careful with hard racing, thankfully, he’s got one of Xfinity’s most successful veterans in his corner.

Justin Allgaier will guide the youngster!

So…here’s how the race unfolded for Zilisch. He bagged the pole start and, like everyone expected, he was dominant. Zilisch even went to lead all the laps in stage one. But things started to get messy in stage 2. Carson Hocevar crashed and the race went green again. But with two laps to go in the stage, several cars were making green-flag pit stops. However, when Zilisch went to do the same, a caution flag was raised on the track. So technically, the pit road was closed…and the #88 car got a penalty for being there.

And according to Zilisch, this is where things started to go bad. He said, “I did not drive a clean race at all … I was kind of mentally fogged halfway through that race.” Which was kind of obvious. He was starting 32nd and had a lot of room to cover to get a good finish. This meant shoving, pushing, spinning…whatever it took. And the first one to face Zilisch’s madness was Justin Allgaier.

On a restart, the #88 driver went too deep into Justin Allgaier, giving him no room. And the veteran thinks this wouldn’t fly with other drivers. Which is true. Not giving room often means getting bumped by the guy in the next turn, or worse, getting wrecked out of the race. So according to the 2024 Xfinity champion, he’s going to have a chat about this with the 18-year-old. Post the race, Allgaier said, “We will have to sit down and talk about it to see what his mindset was in that moment. I don’t know if I wasn’t there that he was making the corner to be honest with you.”

And Allgaier wasn’t the only one. While climbing back to the top, Zilisch spun Corey Heim. And Heim was eyeing a top-5 finish, but rather he finished 31st. Naturally, Heim lashed out at Zilisch, calling his move “overly aggressive.” Still, he did not stop there. In the final laps, it became a battle between two JRM drivers. Carson Kvapil was leading when Zilisch came in him hot, trading paint and taking the lead. The neck-to-neck battle ended when Kvapil got a flat from sliding too much.

Zilisch cruised to victory after this, but his car too wasn’t in the best conditions. He pushed it too far! And this has left Zilisch with mixed feelings about the win!

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Connor Zilisch is not satisfied with COTA!

First win of his full season, yet again proving his road course prowess…all this should have left him pumped. But Zilisch is a perfectionist and likes to do things in a clean way. But his COTA run was anything but that. And he’s already sent apology texts to everyone he wronged. Post the race, he said, “Yeah, I’ve already texted three people that I thought I done wrong today and I just need to learn to drive at 80 percent of these places. I’m so fast but that penalty hindered us and got my head spinning. I need to stay calmer.”

However, Zilisch might be a rookie, but he’s got good track manners at such a young age. After issuing the apologies, he also reflected on what he needs to improve going forward. And he intends to not repeat his mistakes. “I’m honestly more frustrated with myself than I am happy. I made way too many mistakes. That made it way harder on myself. There are so many things I could say about myself that I could have done better. I don’t know how we came back and won the race. It’s just a testament to how fast our car was but I definitely have a lot to clean up moving forward,” he added.

And that’s something he needs to do right away. Next up is the COTA Cup race for him and running this hard there would only invite payback there. Imagine Zilisch doing what he did to Kyle Busch. Rowdy would rough him up. And maybe Denny Hamlin is already looking for revenge for what Zilsich did to Corey Heim. Heim is now on the 23XI Racing rooster and we know how much Hamlin loves his drivers!

Anyway, Zilisch is a frontrunner entering the Cup race. Let’s hope he keeps it clean and maybe even bags his debut Cup win! What did you think of Zilisch’s Xfinity run? Do you think this would fly in Cup? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.