JOLIET, Il. — A frustrating rookie season continued for Connor Zilisch at Chicagoland Speedway as he crashed on the opening lap of the Cup Series race.
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Zilisch, the driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, crashed on the curved backstretch while racing in the middle of the pack. This destroyed the front end of the car and resulted in another last-place finish.
The North Carolina native happened to be an innocent bystander in this incident. A chain reaction unfolded as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got squeezed into the outside wall. Contact from Erik Jones in the same area of the track spun Ryan Preece into Zilisch.
There was nowhere to go for @ConnorZilisch. pic.twitter.com/zeMR00yGqg
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 5, 2026
While the No. 88 slid across the track and slammed into the inside SAFER barrier, Preece's No. 60 ended up stuck on the apron. His car blew the front tires while sliding sideways in the incident. This meant that he had to get a tow to the DVP area so the team could put on fresh tires. Preece fell four laps down in the process.
This opening-lap crash at Chicagoland Speedway continued a brutal stretch for Zilisch, who led the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series last season with 10 wins.
He has finished 30th or worse nine times. This includes three races in a row — Charlotte, Nashville, Michigan — in which he crashed. He then finished 23rd at Pocono before crashing and finishing 37th on Naval Base Coronado.
The Trackhouse Racing driver entered the Chicagoland weekend with an average finish of 27.1 and six DNFs, but he had appeared to break through last weekend at Sonoma Raceway with his first top-10 finish.
"It felt good to have a clean run," he said after a seventh-place finish at the California road course. "We needed a day like this to go into next week with something to build on."
The momentum did not last as the young driver found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, he will have to look forward to Atlanta next weekend and a potential opportunity to rebound.
