{"id":135854,"date":"2025-09-11T09:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135854\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T09:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:56:08","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-sets-expectations-for-connor-zilisch-rookie-nascar-cup-series-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/135854\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. sets expectations for Connor Zilisch rookie NASCAR Cup Series season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Connor Zilisch\u2018s rookie season in the NASCAR Cup Series will be \u201crough.\u201d On the Dale Jr. Download podcast,<\/a> Earnhardt set the expectations for Zilisch when he joins the Cup Series in February. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he will be mid-pack a lot,\u201d Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. \u201cThat will be due to two things. Trackhouse [Racing] has this sort of hot and cold vibe, right? They run the [Coca-Cola] 600, fastest car there, by far, and then disappear for a while. They obviously have good speed at the road courses, and I think that since [Shane van Gisbergen] is there, and kind of understands, and is getting better at making the NextGen car what it needs to be\u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cHe would get in the NextGen car in Year 1 and not really know what the car needed to be better, but he was just good enough to go out there and be quick because of his own pure ability. But now he\u2019s drove the car long enough to go, \u2018Yeah, this is what the car needs, and then I\u2019ll be even better.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Connor Zilisch could have a \u2018rough\u2019 rookie season<\/p>\n

Earnhardt continued: \u201cConnor\u2019s going to benefit from all of that knowledge coming in straight away. Then, he\u2019ll have his own ability, plus a reasonably solid race car, and then Connor then too can start to improve on the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnhardt then added that he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Connor Zilisch \u201cbattles for a win\u201d at a road course next year. However, with Zilisch \u201clearning an entirely new car,\u201d Earnhardt believes that he will have a hard time having success at other tracks. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to be ready for that first year to sort of be rough,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be running 20th, and then we\u2019ll see him on pit road fixing a tow link because we missed it. He hit the wall off of [Lap] 2 a couple of laps ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Trackhouse Racing announced that Zilisch signed a multi-year deal<\/a> to drive in the Cup Series full-time. He currently drives for JR Motorsports (co-owned by Earnhardt) in the Xfinity Series and won the regular season title after winning nine races this year. He enters the Xfinity Series Playoffs on top of the standings and 59 points above the cut line. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Connor Zilisch\u2018s rookie season in the NASCAR Cup Series will be \u201crough.\u201d On the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,9398,14056,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-135854","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-dale-earnhardt-jr","12":"tag-nascar","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135854","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=135854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}