Connor Zilisch, driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of his first NASCAR All-Star weekend at Dover Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
Media Availability Quotes:<\/p>\n
You have a practice session coming up. What\u2019s the simulation told you? What types of things are you conscious of? I know you don\u2019t have a lot of years with this generation racecar, but there\u2019s changes with it. Just what\u2019s your expectation for this practice session and what are you looking for?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s definitely going to be interesting. We have resin all the way across the racetrack, and then we have the low downforce package with the Cup car. Certainly, there\u2019s a lot of things for drivers to learn, but it\u2019s going to be good for me to get an hour and a half of practice, two sets of tires, have some time to go out and figure things out. I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
To that point, you don\u2019t have a lot of preconceived notions about what this place should be with a Cup car, and then you throw in the rules change and the resin. Is it easier for you in that regard in that you don\u2019t have anything you have to override in terms of what you think this place should be?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I mean certainly, I don\u2019t have any previous experience. While I\u2019m figuring it out, so will everybody else. But yeah, it doesn\u2019t hurt me to have no experience, especially when we have rules changes like this. But at the end of the day, our job is to drive a car fast no matter what\u2019s given to us. So yeah, I\u2019m looking forward to seeing what it does.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure growing up you have memories or fond memories of watching All-Star races over the years. And I\u2019m curious, how much do you feel like, regardless of where it\u2019s held or what the format is, how important is it in your mind that we have some sort of event like this that\u2019s just different than the standard 36 races?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I mean I definitely think it\u2019s important to have something with an unique format to give people something to look forward to. We have a very long schedule, and I think that after 36 weeks in a row, it\u2019s good to have at least a weekend where we switch things up and do something different. I always appreciate that the pit crews get a chance to show their talent and have a chance to win some money. Yeah, it\u2019s good for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, you have more practice, I think, than just about any other race this year. It actually may be number one. Non-points race, Dover\u2019s so unique. But is there anything you can take from being in the car this long that you guys are looking to try to glean from it and maybe learn from other racetracks?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, 100%. It\u2019s not often we get a session where we can go out and change things and try and do things differently with the racecar. I mean, especially at a track like this where it\u2019s okay to make multiple runs on tires, I feel like you\u2019re able to do that a little better here, and places like Bristol, some of those higher-grip tracks with less fall-off. So, yeah, it\u2019s certainly important to try and utilize them as best as possible. You don\u2019t get them very often, so you should try and make the most of them when you have them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you have any guesses for what the resin is going to do throughout the course of the weekend? Is there any sense on your team of like \u2014 alright, it\u2019ll probably start as this, then it\u2019ll go to this, or is everybody in a guessing game?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve done this, so it\u2019s kind of a lot of guesses. It\u2019s very hard to say what we expect, but I think the track\u2019s going to widen out. I think you\u2019re going to get guys running all over the place. I hope that makes the racing product better. I hope we\u2019re not too stuck to the track that it becomes slot cars and we\u2019re just ripping around at really high pace.<\/p>\n
But I think it\u2019s very hard to say what it\u2019s going to do. So, yeah, it\u2019s certainly going to be different, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last weekend when you talked to everybody, it was fresh off Jesse Love\u2019s heartbreak. Doubling back with him during the week, did you feel like you could have a conversation about it, or was it was still so raw that you\u2019re not there yet, friend-wise?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019d be different if I wrecked him, then I think it\u2019d be a little tougher to have a conversation. But, I mean, I did nothing wrong. So, yeah, we hung out on Monday and everything was normal. It\u2019s kind of just something you\u2019ve got to expect when you\u2019re friends with the guy you\u2019re racing against, is that you\u2019re not going to be friends on the track, and you\u2019ve just got to separate the two as best you can.<\/p>\n
It happens, right? That\u2019s our sport. That\u2019s part of it. We race each other hard on the weekend, but when it\u2019s time to be friends away from the racetrack and put racing to the side, we\u2019re able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
GM PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connor Zilisch, driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-671825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671825","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=671825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}