XFINITY: Fourth Straight Win Would Put Connor Zilisch in Rarified Air

NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie Connor Zilisch has been nothing short of impressive this year.

The 19-year-old driver has already been to victory lane a whopping five times (COTA, Pocono, Sonoma, Dover, and Indianapolis), and following last weekend’s Pennzoil 250 at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the driver of the No. 88 is riding on three straight wins.

That accomplishment is already a significant one and makes him just the 12th driver in the 43-year history of the NASCAR Xfinity Series to win three consecutive events. However, should he win Saturday’s Hy-Vee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway, that air will become even more rare.

Only twice in the history of NASCAR’s second-tier division has a driver been to Victory Lane in four consecutive events. It first happened in 1983, when Sam Ard won races at South Boston, Martinsville, Rougemont, and Charlotte, which pretty much wrapped up the championship.

It took four decades for that same feat to happen a second time, when Noah Gragson captured victories at Darlington, Kansas, Bristol, and Texas in the Fall of 2022. Those results, mixed with the format the Xfinity Series uses to decide its championships now, left Gragson with a runner-up result in the championship.

Now, just three years later, Zilisch is looking to put together another magical run in the NASCAR Xfinity Series… and based on his past successes, there is no reason to believe that the driver of the No. 88 Kampgrounds of America Chevrolet can’t make it happen.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-native laid his eyes on Iowa Speedway for the first time in his racing career last Summer, when he competed in the ARCA Menards Series event at the 0.875-mile racetrack, an even where he led more than 100 laps and won the race.

While that is, without a doubt, a glowing endorsement for Zilisch to potentially go to Victory Lane on Saturday and earn his fourth consecutive victory, there’s another pretty iron-clad reason to think he could pull something this magical off.

In the last nine NASCAR Xfinity Series events (since returning from a back injury suffered in a last-lap wreck at Talladega), Zilisch has been mind-blowingly consistent, collecting nine straight top-five finishes, seven of which have been either first or second-place results.

That in itself is an incredible and hardly ever seen streak in any competitive racing series, let alone a competitive series like the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and much less to be accomplished by a rookie driver, is legendary. So, another top-two run or a victory, wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest.

After all, this is arguably NASCAR’s most talented prospect, who, realistically, is looking at making the jump into the NASCAR Cup Series in 2026 – since Trackhouse Racing and Daniel Suarez confirmed that they would be parting ways at the end of the season.

Even if Zilisch, the youngest driver in Xfinity Series history to reach six victories, came out and finished last at Iowa, his season would still be phenomenal. Still, another piece of history would really make his resume glimmer as the next chapter of his career appears over the horizon.