{"id":100177,"date":"2025-08-27T06:27:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/100177\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T06:27:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:27:06","slug":"nascar-insiders-debate-concern-surrounding-connor-zilisch-joining-nascar-cup-series-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/100177\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insiders debate concern surrounding Connor Zilisch joining NASCAR Cup Series in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Connor Zilisch will be a full-time driver for the NASCAR Cup Series in 2026, and a couple of insiders have some interesting things to say about the move. On the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PQrYmw9zhnk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Door Bumper Clear podcast<\/a>, Tommy Baldwin and Freddie Kraft discussed how Zilisch will handle the transition. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe kid is so mentally ahead of everybody of his age, of his thought process, of what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cHe can turn on and off like that. I\u2019ve watched it. I\u2019ve been around him enough to see and watch his actions, and do the things that he does, and how he talks and how he thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kraft shared his thoughts on Connor Zilisch, saying that he might have a hard time adjusting to the Cup Series. \u201cWhen we see Connor get in these pressure situations, he has a tendency to make mistakes,\u201d Kraft said. Kraft then listed examples of when Zilisch made his mistakes, such as Mexico with Ty Gibbs, Watkins Glen, where he ended up wrecking Shan van Gisbergen, and the Xfinity race at COTA.<\/p>\n<p>Connor Zilisch reacts to joining the NASCAR Cup Series <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has to clean that s**t up when he gets himself a little behind eight ball, and he\u2019s going to spend a lot of time behind the eight ball in the Cup Series,\u201d Kraft continued. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to come in and just dominate like he is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zilisch, 19, currently drives full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for JR Motorsports and has won six races this year. Last week, Trackhouse Racing announced that Zilisch signed a multi-year deal to drive the No. 99 car in the Cup Series. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s cool. I knew the whole world knew already, but still to be able to say it and have my name next to the word \u2018Cup Series\u2019 is really cool,\u201d Zilisch said during his press conference, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nascar.com\/news-media\/2025\/08\/23\/trackhouse-racing-taps-connor-zilisch-for-full-cup-series-schedule-in-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">per NASCAR.com.<\/a> \u201cSo, I wasn\u2019t going to try and hide from it, but it\u2019s just a day that I\u2019ve been dreaming of for a long time and I\u2019m not going to let that kind of the idea that everybody already knows take away from the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connor Zilisch will be a full-time driver for the NASCAR Cup Series in 2026, and a couple of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,9398,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-100177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-connor-zilisch","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}