Connor Zilisch

Connor Zilisch (born July 21, 2006) is an American racing driver. He is signed as a development driver for Trackhouse Racing as of 2024. Under that agreement, Zilisch competes in select races across multiple racing series, including the NASCAR Xfinity Series (for JR Motorsports), the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (for Spire Motorsports), the ARCA Menards Series (for Pinnacle Racing Group), the CARS Tour, the Trans-Am Series (for Silver Hare Racing), the IMSA SportsCar Championship (for Era Motorsport) and the Global MX-5 Cup.

Notable achievements include winning the 2024 24 Hours of Daytona and the 2024 12 Hours of Sebring in the LMP2 class in his first attempt, and being the first American driver to win the Karting Academy Trophy.

Racing career

Early career

Karting

Zilisch started competing in go-karts at the age of 5 in 2011. He would spend 10 years racing karts before moving up to cars in 2021. Zilisch karted primarily in the United States until 2017 when he won the Mini Rok World Championship in South Garda, Italy competing against more than 160 other competitors from 33 different countries. He returned to Europe to race primarily in the FIA OKJ class in 2018–2020 and made the "A" final in the OKJ World Championship in both 2019 and 2020. In 2020 he also became the first ever American to win the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy, a three race series where competitors from all over the world all race on identical equipment.RACER">

Mazda MX-5 Global Cup and Trans-Am

Zilisch began racing cars in early 2021 with the Sports Car Club of America in the Spec Miata class and quickly began showing strong results, setting 3 track records and reaching the podium multiple times. At the SCCA Run-offs in Indianapolis that year, Zilisch finished 3rd out of ~ 90 cars in the competitive Spec Miata class and shortly thereafter was named the SCCA Jim Fitzgerald Rookie of the Year. Zilisch also competed in the Mazda MX-5 Cup Shootout competition, in late 2021, winning the $110,000 scholarship which would fund his participation in the series in 2022. In late 2021 Zilisch also ran his first Trans Am TA2 race at Virginia International Raceway earning pole position while shattering the track record as a rookie driver. He led the race early until a mechanical issue forced him to retire early, however, his performance in the race led to his being invited to race TA2 full-time for Silver Hare Racing in 2022.

In the Mazda MX-5 Cup series, Zilisch recorded 4 wins on the season and nearly won the championship in the last race of the season at Road Atlanta. In that race, Zilisch needed to finish at least 3 spots ahead of Jared Thomas to win the $250K championship prize and on track he did that, finishing 6th to Thomas' 9th place finish, however a post-race penalty to Alex Bachoura (who finished in between Zilisch and Thomas) ended up moving Thomas up one position and handing him the championship. Zilisch won $85K for second place and was also named the Mazda MX-5 Cup Rookie of the Year for 2022.BFGoodrich