Connor Zilisch: 13 Wins, a Brutal Rookie Year, and Hendrick's No. 48 in 2028
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Driver Spotlight - where we pull one Cup Series driver into the garage, look under the hood at their career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the number 88.
The Short Version
Connor Zilisch is 20 years old, he has 13 wins in NASCAR's second-tier series, and he has already won the 24 Hours of Daytona in the LMP2 class. He is also having one of the hardest rookie seasons in recent Cup Series memory, with one top-10 and nine DNFs in the No. 88 Trackhouse Chevrolet. And in the middle of all that, Hendrick Motorsports signed him to drive the famous No. 48 starting in 2028. If you want to understand where NASCAR is headed, you watch this kid.
From Charlotte Karts to the Rolex 24
Connor Jackson Zilisch was born July 22, 2006, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the youngest of three kids. He got in a kart at five years old. By 2017 he had won the Mini Rok World Championship in Italy. In 2020 he became the first American ever to win the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy.
Then he did something most stock car prospects never do. He went sports car racing. He won the Mazda MX-5 Cup scholarship in 2021 and took MX-5 Cup Rookie of the Year in 2022. In 2024, in his first attempt at each, he won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring in the LMP2 class. He was 17 and 18 years old. Endurance racing veterans spend careers chasing one of those.
He came back to Daytona in January 2026 in a Cadillac in the top GTP class and finished second overall, 1.5 seconds behind the winning Porsche after 24 hours of racing. That is the kind of range almost nobody in this sport has.
The Xfinity Season That Rewrote the Record Book
Zilisch made his Xfinity Series debut in September 2024 at Watkins Glen and won it. First start, first win, less than two months after his 18th birthday.
Then came 2025 with JR Motorsports, and it was one of the best rookie seasons the series has ever seen. Ten wins. Eighteen consecutive top-five finishes, which is a series record. Four wins in a row, which tied Sam Ard and Noah Gragson for the most in Xfinity history. He won the regular-season championship and Rookie of the Year, and he made the title race at Phoenix. Jesse Love passed him with 24 laps to go and took the championship. Zilisch finished second.
He also gave NASCAR its most-replayed clip of the year, and not in a good way. After his sixth win of 2025 at Watkins Glen, he climbed up on the roof of his car to celebrate, caught his foot in the window netting, and fell to the asphalt. He broke his left collarbone and needed surgery with plates and screws. Trackhouse withdrew his Cup entry the next day. He was back racing weeks later.
The Signature Moment: Hendrick Comes Calling
On August 17, 2026, in the middle of the worst stretch of his racing life, Hendrick Motorsports announced it had signed Zilisch to a multi-year deal to drive the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet beginning in 2028. Alex Bowman is stepping away from full-time racing after 2027, and Zilisch is the replacement. He stays in the Trackhouse No. 88 through 2027 first.
That is the whole story in one signing. A team that has won 14 Cup championships looked at a rookie sitting 34th in points and decided he was worth waiting two years for.
Can’t wait for 2028 with @TeamHendrick and @allyracing!
— Connor Zilisch (@ConnorZilisch) August 17, 2026
By the Numbers
Here is the career so far. The wins are all in NASCAR's second-tier series. The Cup column is still empty, and that gap is the whole conversation around him right now.
The Rookie Season Nobody Saw Coming
Everybody expected a learning year. Nobody expected this. Zilisch opened 2026 with a 33rd-place finish in the Daytona 500 and never got a run going. Over 26 points races he posted one top-10, a seventh at Sonoma, and finished 30th or worse a dozen times. Nine of those races ended in a DNF, the most in the series. He sat 34th in the standings in early August.
Most of the garage does not blame the driver. Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin have both pointed at Trackhouse, not Zilisch, and the numbers back that up. That does not make it easier to live through. At New Hampshire in August, after DNF number nine, he got on the radio and told his team exactly what he thought of himself. It was rough to listen to.
Off the Track
Zilisch is still very much a 20-year-old. As of a February 2026 profile he was still living at home with his parents outside Charlotte. His mother, Janice Kerr, was a gymnast on Canada's national team and an NCAA regional all-around champion at Florida, so the athlete gene did not come from nowhere.
When he is not driving he coaches younger karters, and he spots for other drivers, including his Trackhouse teammate Ross Chastain. He co-hosts a YouTube channel called Shake N Bake Sports with Jesse Love and Daniel Dye, the same Jesse Love who beat him for the 2025 title. In 2026 he did a turn as a guest analyst on the NASCAR broadcast on The CW.
The Bottom Line
Connor Zilisch has won in his first start in a series, won at Daytona in a sports car, and won in Xfinity cars at a rate almost nobody has matched. The Cup Series is the one place that has not given him anything yet. Hendrick just bet the No. 48 that it will.
Zilisch gear is thin right now, which is what happens before a driver gets his first Cup win. Here is what is in stock, plus the rest of the Trackhouse shop:
- Connor Zilisch #88 Pewter Blue Number Signature Hang Tag Keychain
- Shane van Gisbergen #97 2026 Watkins Glen Winner Tee
- Shane van Gisbergen #97 Pewter Blue SVG Initials Hang Tag Keychain
- Ross Chastain #1 Lime Indy Scheme Trackhouse Shirt
- Ross Chastain #1 Pewter Blue Number Signature Hang Tag Keychain
See it all in the Connor Zilisch collection, or grab the shirt the week it happens with the win shirt fan club. New driver spotlights drop every Thursday.
