{"id":511002,"date":"2026-03-03T06:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T06:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/511002\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T06:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T06:04:10","slug":"nascar-insiders-break-down-brutal-cota-race-for-connor-zilisch-trackhouse-showdown-failing-to-materialize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/511002\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insiders break down brutal COTA race for Connor Zilisch, Trackhouse showdown failing to materialize"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two NASCAR insiders were expecting a lot more from Connor Zilisch and Trackhouse Racing at the COTA race on Sunday. On this week\u2019s episode of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mjx6qs9F2pY\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Teardown<\/a>, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic broke down what went wrong for Zilisch, who finished 14th. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe gets taken out twice in Turn 1,\u201d Gluck said about Zilisch. \u201c\u2026He drove all the way back up and was in contention. That\u2019s really unfortunate for him because he was going to be able to salvage a decent day, and now he\u2019s still 32nd in points tied with Cody Ware.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With Connor Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen driving for Trackhouse Racing, Bianchi was hoping to see the two battle at COTA since they are strong on road courses. \u201cThey\u2019re going to put on a masterclass display, and yet it didn\u2019t really materialize,\u201d Bianchi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSVG was a player, but we never got that showdown. We\u2019re still waiting for that to happen. They didn\u2019t even qualify that well. In qualifying, they weren\u2019t even that dominant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Connor Zilisch reacts to his P14 finish at COTA<\/p>\n<p>For what it\u2019s worth, Zilisch\u2019s P14 finish is his best in the early stages of the season. And for van Gisbergen, he finished second behind Tyler Reddick on Sunday, and he won the O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series COTA race on Saturday. SVG and Zilisch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/pro\/news\/nascar-duramax-grand-prix-odds-betting-favorites-cup-series-race-cota\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">were the top two favorites<\/a> to win at COTA on Sunday, but they still had strong overall performances.<\/p>\n<p>After the race, Zilisch reacted to his work on the track. \u201cYeah, I mean, I feel like I drove one of the best races I\u2019ve ever driven, and we finished 14th,\u201d Zilisch explained, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/racing-america\/news\/connor-zilisch-not-satisfied-after-multiple-rallies-at-cota\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toby Christie of Sports Illustrated.<\/a> \u201cSo, yeah, it sucks. Our Red Bull Chevrolet was really fast all day, and we were putting ourselves in a spot there on that last caution in Stage 3 to go have a chance to win the race, and yeah, got wrecked again in Turn 1. I don\u2019t know if I need to do something different, but yeah, just one of those days.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two NASCAR insiders were expecting a lot more from Connor Zilisch and Trackhouse Racing at the COTA race&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,9398,634,82],"class_list":["post-511002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-connor-zilisch","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511002","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=511002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}