The Zilisch Express made yet another stop at Victory Lane station.
Rookie phenom Connor Zilisch of JR Motorsports earned his fourth consecutive victory from the pole en route to clinching the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular-season title in Saturday night’s Nu Way 200 Sauced by Blues Hog at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Zilisch led four times for a race-high 121 laps to win by 1.506 seconds over runner-up William Sawalich of Joe Gibbs Racing, who needed the victory to make the playoffs. The win was a series rookie record ninth for Zilisch, who claimed the regular-season title by 53 points over teammate Justin Allgaier and gained 15 valuable bonus playoff points as a result.
“That one was stressful. Man, that’s awesome! Four in a row,” Zilisch said. “This is going to be tough to keep up, honestly. It’s rare that you can go on a run like this.
“Every week I show up thinking, man, this is going to be the weekend that we just go run eighth and aren’t great. But every weekend we show up and we’re a winning race car and my pit crew executes, my team executes and everybody does their job, and we end up doing burnouts on the frontstretch.”
The 160-lap, 200-mile regular-season finale determined the final three berths for the 12-driver Xfinity Series Playoffs field. Sheldon Creed of the Haas Factory Team, Taylor Gray of Joe Gibbs Racing and Harrison Burton of AM Racing earn the spots based off their points standings. They join race winners Zilisch, Allgaier, Sam Mayer of the Haas Factory Team, Jesse Love of Richard Childress Racing, Austin Hill of RCR, Brandon Jones of Joe Gibbs Racing, Sammy Smith of JR Motorsports and Nick Sanchez of Big Machine Racing along with JR Motorsports’ Carson Kvapil, who clinched a spot last week on points.
JR Motorsports took the opening two stages with Zilisch winning the first and Allgaier the second. Zilisch grabbed control in the final stage, but had to fend off late challenges on restarts as a result of three caution flags coming in the final 31 laps. The big one came on Lap 136 when 10 cars were involved in a Turn 1 incident and the last from Laps 144-148 for debris on the frontstretch.
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Aric Almirola, who finished sixth, put up a brief challenge by taking the lead on the opening lap after the restart. Zilisch, however, regained the lead on the ensuing lap and led the final 12 to victory.
The opening Xfinity Series Playoffs Round of 12 opens Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway with Zilisch as the top seed.
WWTR PR