By: Ashley McCubbin

After thrilling everyone with a stellar NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, Connor Zilisch now steps up to the next challenge of his career. He will move up to the NASCAR Cup Series, set to run his rookie campaign with Trackhouse Racing.

Despite all expectations and eyes on him for success, he is not following those same rules for himself.

“I don’t have any expectations to go out and win a championship at all,” he said. “But I definitely want to work towards that and one day be able to be in the position to go out and win one. But I’m just excited for this season to go out and learn; have fun and enjoy it. I know it’s going to be a challenge. I know it’s going to be tougher than it was last year, and I’m ready for that.”

Zilisch added that is hard to set expectations for himself in not knowing what to expect due to everything being new – series and team.

“I’m excited,” he continued. “You know, my biggest goal is to be a better driver at the end of the year than I am today, and if I can accomplish that, then I’d be satisfied.”

Despite the eyes being open, there are things that Zilisch knows he has to work on beyond simply just getting comfortable in a new racecar. It is also about getting better at tracks where he feels he struggled last year.

“I feel like I did let myself get a little bit too comfortable at points,” he explained. “I knew my cars were going to be good every week, and that can lead to having that expectation that no matter what happens, I’m going to go out and contend for a win, and I think that’s a bad mindset to have. So obviously that’s not going to be the case this year. I’m not going to have the expectation to go out and win every week, so that’s going to change. But I feel like just making sure that I stay hungry no matter what’s going on is important. and I think that that’s going to be more so the case this year, with the fact that I’m going to have to catch up to the guys that I’m around. And I know that going into it, so I’m ready for that challenge.

“I know I’ve got a lot ahead of me. I’ve got a lot of races ahead of me. I’ve got a lot of experience and lessons over the next 40 weeks. But that excites me.”

Zilisch kicked off the 2026 campaign with an 18th-place finish in the Cookout Clash at Bowman Grey Stadium despite a mid-race spin.