Expectations are a privilege and a pressure but Connor Zilisch made a statement in meeting both in his first day in the NASCAR Truck Series by winning the pole for Saturday at Circuit of the Americas.
It wasn’t just that he was fastest in time trials but that the 17-year-old shattered the Truck Series track record and was faster than second place qualifier Corey Heim by seven tenths of a second.
Zilisch is no ordinary rookie of course as he won the Rolex 24 in January in the LMP2 class alongside Ryan Dalziel and Dwight Merriman. He is the youngest ever winner in TransAm TA1 and the youngest champion in TransAm TA2.
He’s also spent the past year developing his craft as a oval racer in Late Models and was signed to a long-term NASCAR development contract by Trackhouse Racing.
Zilisch has known all winter that COTA would be the site of his series debut, and has spent a lot of time preparing for this start, at a track he has made numerous sports car starts in. Despite all the preparation, it was certainly a surprise to him to win the pole and do it by such a large margin.
“I a hundred percent surprised myself today,” he said in a post-session media availability.
But he also gave all the credit to Spire Motorsports, who fields his No. 7 on loan from Trackhouse, and one of the best prepared Trucks in the division previously driven by Corey Lajoie and Kyle Busch already this spring.
“I could have driven at 95 percent and still been able to get the pole,” Zilisch said.
Well yeah, that’s what a seven-tenths advantage means!
“I told myself in the pole round to just go out there and don’t make a mistake based on the gap I had in the first round so I probably under drove it a little bit but I know where I can improve and what I need to do for the race tomorrow and that’s the most important thing.”
Cup Series star Kyle Larson was in the media center earlier in the day during qualifying and remarked that Zilisch should dominate the race as long as someone doesn’t wreck him.
Zilisch doesn’t take the challenge for granted and knows there will be challenges beyond that potential too.
“I’ve been here a few times before and it gets a little dirty in places with guys cutting the track and I have to worry about that tomorrow,” Zilisch said. “But I have to manage it right. I’ve never ran a truck race before so everything is going to be new to me — tire fall off, pit road.
“So much to learn. But today was good but it’s going to be more treacherous tomorrow.”
Veteran Sports Car racer Mike Skeen called Zilisch the future of NASCAR after Zilisch won in his TA1 debut, a race that had a 46-second margin of victory, if you’re noticing a theme developing. Marks signed him to a deal for the same expectations.
But Zilisch has never shown any sort of arrogance and instead exudes gratitude and a belief that there is so much more to learn. He also admitted that he was nervous before qualifying because he didn’t want to let everyone who believes in him so much down.
“I’ve made mistakes many, many times in the past, and even feel like I struggled with nerves and had to talk to my sports psychologist about it,” Zilisch said. “I would get so nervous and amped before races that I would just go out there, mess up and not do my job.
“That’s one thing I’ve really had to work on the past two years, not getting too amped up, whether I do or don’t have confidence, but just processing the nerves.
“That’s a big part of this, when you look at race car drivers, they have the talent but the mental aspect is way bigger than people realize.”
So, it helps that Zilish surrounds himself with the likes of Mark, Josh Wise and Scott Speed, while befriending teammates Rajah Caruth and Nick Sanchez, because he is learning from everyone.
And he’s also learned that it’s okay to be nervous as long as he processes it.
“I Was nervous before qualifying but the key is putting the helmet on and making that go away,” he said. “I didn’t want to make a mistake but I don’t want that to effect what I’m doing.”
It sure didn’t on Friday.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.