For the third time this year, Connor Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen have battled at the front of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Field at a Road Course, the first two times ended with one driver winning each, but that luck may've warn off as the JR Motorsports teammates tangled with 16 laps remaining in the Misson 300 at Watkins Glen.
Shane van Gisbergen led Zilisch at the opening of stage two and held him off fiercely from 20 laps to go down to 16, when entering turn six, Connor Zilisch pulled alongside the No. 9 of van Gisbergen, went wide in their battle, and while rejoining the race ended up turning van Gisbergen by hitting his rear right side.
van Gisbergen went hard into the barriers to grab enough damage to retire from the race.
Zilisch continues on with scruffs along his nose and left side. Zilisch asked his spotter to be real with him, to understand if he overreacted and caused the wreck.
"I just don’t know where I could’ve gone," Zilisch radioed. "He didn’t leave me any room to rejoin."
"You’ve got to shake it off and win this race, worry about it later," Josh Williams replied.
"Don’t lie to me if I f***ing wrecked him either like you did at Iowa, if I wrecked him, tell me," Zilisch clarified.
"I’m not lying to you, you had one lane to get back on the track," Williams assured.
van Gisbergen has not rewatched the incident yet, and will not comment on whether he felt Zilisch was at fault or not, but feels 'gutted' for the team for a race that could've resulted in a win ended prematurely.
"Not ideal," van Gisbergen told The CW. "Pretty gutted actually. Gutted for the JR Motorsports team. Our car wasn’t great, but we still went and managed to get ourselves in a good position."
Zilisch restarted fifth and took the lead quickly. The race is currently under red flag for a huge crash with nine to go, which started with a major hit on Michael McDowell.
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