Connor Zilisch is only 18 years old. He’s never run a single Cup race in his life (that changes Sunday when he competes in the Echopark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas) but already, he’s casting a big shadow over Justin Marks’ Trackhouse racing team.
Zilisch is the new hot young talent in NASCAR, and boy is he young and boy is he talented. If Zilisch can get around the track as fast as he’s climbed the ranks in NASCAR, nobody will catch him. He’s already won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring and stopped for a moment to run four races in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series last year, winning at Watkins Glen and adding a pair of fourth place finishes in two of the other three.
So, no matter what he does Sunday – and some see him as a contender in his first race – Zilisch is here to stay. He’ll only make a brief foray into Cup this year, honing his skills at a lower level for most of the season, but he’ll be back.
Which means Daniel Suarez might not be. Suarez, never a golden boy but kind of a bright light pushed to the front with his Latino heritage and NASCAR trying to expand into new markets outside the United States, has faltered, and badly.
In fact the whole Trackhouse team has struggled with the Next-Gen car. The OldGuySport point system reflects this with Trackhouse compiling 579 points in 2022, 442 in 2023 and just 250 in 2024. On road courses, team leader Ross Chastain and Suarez each had a win in 2022 but there have been none since then and Suarez, who grew up on road courses, has been particularly brutal.
In 2022, he compiled 102 points, was competitive in four of the six road course races and had the win at Sonoma. In 2023, he dipped to 31 points, all accumulated in one race, and in 2024 he didn’t score a single point. Suarez had his contract extended after last year, but it was just for the 2025 season and if he doesn’t up his game considerably, he could be out the door with Jilisch waiting in the wings.
While anything’s possible and we have nothing to go on this year this being the first real race of the NASCAR season, it doesn’t appear realistic to expect a Trackhouse driver to win on Sunday although veteran New Zealand road racer Shane van Gisbergen, who won the Chicago street race in his first ever NASCAR start in 2023, is now running full time for Trackhouse and is probably a better pick than Zilisch.
Still, the road courses – and just about every other discipline as well – were dominated by the Hendrick drivers in 2024 and with no major changes in the Cup car this year, you would have to expect Hendrick and Joe Gibbs Racing, the other 500 pound gorilla in NASCAR, to set the pace again.
Last year, Hendrick drivers won four of the five road course races and captured eight, or about 33%, of the top five finishes. At COTA, William Byron got the win. But the Toyotas made some noise, particularly Christopher Bell. Bell finished second to Byron at COTA and had 100 points on road courses according to the OldGuySport Competition Index.
He was competitive in three races and his 100 points put him third behind Kyle Larson, 134 points, and Byron, who had 111. Tyler Reddick, the lead driver for Toyota’s Team 23XI, didn’t score a lot of points but was competitive in four of the five road course races, more than any other driver. He should be considered a threat to break through this year.
So, looking ahead to Sunday, and taking into consideration the fact that Larson did not run well at COTA last year and Bell came on strong to edge Byron for second place in the final road race of the year at Charlotte, the top three picks for this race are: 1-Bell, 2-Byron and 3-Larson.
