Livescore
Generally speaking, the NASCAR Cup Series is no place for the young and inexperienced.
Statistics show that Cup drivers are generally at their best in their 30s — perhaps even their late 30s. That stands in stark contrast to other sports, such as football, basketball or baseball, where players tend to peak in their mid-to-late 20s. One explanation is that the benefit of experience is greater, and lasts a longer time, relative to age-related reductions in physical abilities (such as reaction time and eyesight) in NASCAR than in stick-and-ball sports.
So when a driver still manages to excel at an early age, breaking through to the sport‘s highest level before they‘re even legally old enough to drink, it means something special. This is why all eyes will be on young phenom Connor Zilisch at the Circuit of The Americas this week, as the North Carolina native will compete in his first Cup race at 18 years and 223 days old in Sunday‘s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Connor Zilisch eager ahead of COTA Cup debut | Weekend schedule
Zilisch will become the youngest driver to make a Cup Series debut since Joey Logano at the 2008 Sylvania 300 in New Hampshire, at the tender age of 18 years and 114 days old:
Logano represents some lofty company for Zilisch because his rise as a young prodigy was practically like no one else‘s we‘ve ever seen in history. When Logano was just 15, legendary driver Mark Martin raved about his talent — “I am absolutely, 100-percent positive, without a doubt that he can be one of the greatest that ever raced in NASCAR,” Martin said, “There’s no doubt in my mind.” — and Randy LaJoie nicknamed him “sliced bread” when he was running around the Nationwide (now Xfinity) Series at age 18. Logano was such a special prospect that Joe Gibbs immediately handed him the keys to the iconic No. 20 Home Depot Toyota after Tony Stewart left to create Stewart-Haas Racing.
Zilisch has experienced a similarly meteoric ascent. He became the first American to win the FIA Karting Academy Trophy at age 14 in 2020 — joining a roster of winners that includes Formula One driver Charles Leclerc — and he had a 2024 season for the ages, in terms of accomplishments as a young driver: He won 15 total races across seven different series, including two endurance races in the LMP2 class and the very first Xfinity Series race he entered, the Mission 200 at Watkins Glen, driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and JR Motorsports.
WATCH: Zilisch on winning Xfinity debut: ‘It’s so special to me’
Now, he will sit behind the wheel of the Trackhouse Racing No. 87 Chevrolet at COTA, a place where he already has a top-five finish from the Truck Series a year ago. But before we get too gassed up on Zilisch‘s potential to excel right away, we do need to note that most young drivers take a little while to find their footing at the Cup level. The average non-Zilisch driver in our list above posted a Driver Rating of just 44.8 in their debut race, and only a few (Justin Haley, Trevor Bayne, Erik Jones) even came close to approaching the Cup Series average Driver Rating of 70.0. Most struggled a lot; even Logano posted a Driver Rating of just 31.8 in his maiden voyage, which remains to this day his fifth-worst performance ever in a single race.
Zilisch may have a unique advantage on Sunday, however. If you scan our list of young debuts, you‘ll notice that none of the others drove their first race at a road course like COTA. To find the next youngest driver to make his Cup debut at a road course since 2005, we have to go all the way down to Alex Kennedy, who was 21 years and 142 days old when he debuted in the 2013 Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma.
Kennedy was something of a road-course ringer, but he was nowhere near the level of prospect that Zilisch is, and his Cup career lasted just 22 races. Zilisch, by contrast, has a lot of experience (for his age) at many different track types, even though his most impressive performances have come at road courses. It‘s also worth mentioning that the only driver to win in his Cup debut in the past 62 years did it at a road course — of sorts — when Shane van Gisbergen won the 2023 Grant Park 220 in Chicago. Granted, van Gisbergen was 34 years old then and had accrued far more experience and success driving touring cars than Zilisch has at this early phase of his career.
But even if Zilisch does struggle in the same manner as other young debut drivers, how long might it take for him to get rolling? Here‘s a plot of Driver Ratings over the first 10 career starts for every Cup Series driver who debuted before turning 21 since 2005:
For many drivers in this category, early progress was a bit slow to arrive. The average Driver Rating of the group improves some between race Nos. 1-4, then stalls some in race No. 5 before leveling out a bit. Then, the average drops again at race No. 10. Some of the names on our list were able to rise above, however: Trevor Bayne, Erik Jones, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney (the latter a couple of second-generation Cup phenoms) were above average by race No. 2 of their careers, Ty Gibbs and Reed Sorenson broke through by race No. 3, Carson Hocevar and William Byron did it by race No. 4, and Logano got there by race No. 6. By 10 races in, Elliott, Byron and Blaney was consistently running above-average performances, in a sign of greatness to come.
SHOP: Connor Zilisch gear
In general, young, hotshot drivers do have to wait less time before reaching major milestones. If we break down our sample of drivers who debuted since 2005 by their age at the time of their first race, we find that drivers (like Zilisch) who entered the Cup Series at 18 or 19 and eventually scored a top 10 did it within their first nine career races on average — significantly sooner than drivers who debuted at ages 20 or 21:
That same pattern holds for the average number of races it takes to achieve a top five or a win for the first time. It‘s not necessarily surprising that phenoms would achieve success earlier than drivers who debuted at an older age — prospects like Logano and Zilisch are fast-tracked to the top level for a reason. But that‘s another reason why the hype and expectations tend to be so high for these types of young drivers.
MORE: The hype is real: Connor Zilisch is ‘the next superstar’
What will Zilisch do from here? We can only watch and wait. It‘s worth remembering that even Logano hit plenty of growing pains after his early “sliced bread” days: He beefed with what felt like every driver in the garage and lost his ride at Joe Gibbs Racing before finding redemption with Team Penske — where he improved his reputation over time (just don‘t ask Matt Kenseth about that) and eventually became a three-time Cup Series champion, living up to Martin‘s prophetic words about being one of the greatest ever. Similar patience will probably be required for Zilisch. But for now, his journey is just beginning — and it‘s right to be excited for what his future might hold.
Read the full article here
Discussion about this post