Connor Zilisch won't have any competition for NASCAR Rookie of the Year

Connor Zilisch would've been the runaway favorite to win the NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year award in 2026 anyway, but he's assuredly the favorite with less than a month until the season officially begins on Feb. 15. 

Barring a rookie driver securing a Cup Series ride at the last possible moment, Zilisch will be uncontested in his quest for the ROTY award this season, as no other rookies are currently slated to contest the Cup Series season. 

Zilisch will drive the No. 88 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing in 2026 with crew chief Randall Burnett atop the pit box.

The 19-year-old driver from Mooresville, N.C., took the NASCAR world by storm in 2025, winning 10 races in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series before narrowly losing the championship to Jesse Love. Zilisch ran three Cup Series races in 2026 with Trackhouse. 

Zilisch's Trackhouse teammate in Shane van Gisbergen won ROTY honors in 2025 over 23XI Racing driver Riley Herbst.

Not the first time NASCAR ROTY battle has been boring

NASCAR's Rookie of the Year battles aren't always thrilling, but they are almost always a battle of some kind. 

Never in NASCAR's modern era (1972-present) has there been a Cup Series rookie class of only one driver. The last time there was only one Cup Series rookie was in 1958, when Shorty Rollins won the award by default. Ken Rush (1957) and William Pitt (1954) also won the award by default. NASCAR did not award a ROTY in 1955 or 1956. 

Zilisch is a modern NASCAR driver by every conceivable measure, but he would be throwing it back nearly seven decades this season by winning Rookie of the Year in the easiest way possible.