NASCAR CUP SERIES PHOENIX RACE WAY TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES MARCH 7, 2026 |
Connor Zilisch, driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Phoenix Raceway. | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
NASCAR CUP SERIESPHOENIX RACEWAYTEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTESMARCH 7, 2026 |
Connor Zilisch, driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Phoenix Raceway. | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
| Media Availability Quotes: You’ve raced a lot of other stuff outside of NASCAR. Is there any realistic possibility or chance we see you one day racing in endurance in Europe?“Not anytime soon. No, I’m pretty committed to NASCAR and what I’ve got going here. I’ve always dreamed of racing at Le Mans and stuff like that. But yeah, it’s going to have to wait.” Did you enjoy participating in the latest edition of Full Speed? What was the most satisfying aspect of that for you?“Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I’m very new to NASCAR, obviously, and although I feel like I’ve made it to the Cup Series quickly, not a lot of people really know me, how I got here or much about me at all. So yeah, it’s cool to share my story a little bit through that docuseries. I haven’t watched it yet, but I saw clips from it before they posted. I thought they did a really good job piecing everything together. I was going to watch it on the flight here, but I ended up playing Mario Kart the whole flight. But I’ll end up watching it sometime here in the next few days.” With some of the drivers having issues with cool shirts last week, do you relook at what you do, or do you just have confidence in what your team’s doing with it?“Yeah, I mean, it’s always a risk when you wear that thing is that it could always fail. But you know, you have t to have airflow to it. That’s a big part of it. If you cut off the airflow to the cool shirt box, it gets hot and fails. I’ve always made sure to tell my team that I’ll give up a count or two of downforce to make sure that I’m not going to burn up inside the race car, and if that means flowing a little extra air to it, then so be it. But you know, I’ve never had one of those fail… knock on wood. But yeah, surely last week if mine failed, it would have been a really tough day. It was already hot and when those things fail, it gets hotter than just being in the car without anything. Yeah, it’s always a risk. But thankfully, I haven’t had one fail on me yet.” I don’t know how many times you’ve run for points, but is it startling to see yourself 32nd?“It’s not what we want, obviously. Although it’s early, you still think about it. But it’s a very long season. We’re three races into 36, so although I’d rather be sitting inside the top-10 and say ‘yeah, it’s good’, a lot of it’s out of our control. I feel like we’ve ran better than 32nd in points so far this year, and the results just haven’t really shown it. So yeah, we just got to keep doing our thing and it’ll turn around.” I’m curious if you’ve found that people are willing to run with you because you bring such a strong resume into the series? Have you not had that kind of a problem in terms of getting people to run with you? What would you say has been the biggest lesson that you’ve learned as a full-time Cup Series driver? “Yes and no. I mean, I think if Joey Logano’s lined up behind me and he has the option to push Brad Keselowksi who’s got 25 years of experience, or me, he’s probably going to push Brad. But I think it definitely helps not having a bad reputation, so I think there’s a lot of guys that are willing to work with me. But, you know, not a lot of people have seen me on track to trust me or whatever it is. But yeah, it’s definitely something that you build over time and it’ll continue to grow.I would say after each race, you can’t let it get to you. Obviously I’ve had a couple rough weeks so far, but you just have to keep doing the same thing and know that it’s going to turn back your way eventually and that things are going to start to go well. After the first two weeks, I was sitting dead last in points. I went to COTA last week and felt like I had a chance to win the race and finish 14th. It sucks, but you got to know that there’s a lot left in front of you and you can’t stress on the things that are out of your control.” You said you played a little bit of Mario Kart on the flight down here. Who’s your main character and what’s your favorite track?“Yeah, a couple of my crew guys on my team, we all have Nintendo Switches and we hop on Mario Kart on the fligh |