Kyle Busch in NASCAR breakup as Connor Zilisch gets new crew chief

Kyle Busch's loss will be Connor Zilisch's gain in 2026, when the teenager graduated to the NASCAR Cup Series.

On Tuesday, Trackhouse Racing confirmed that crew chief Randall Burnett will join the team to run operations for Zilisch in his maiden full-time Cup Series campaign.

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Busch and Burnett won three races in their first half-season together at RCR, the two-time Cup Series champ is now winless in more than two years – 87 races and counting – with the latter ready to take on a new challenge.

Burnett has some experience with drivers taking the step up from Xfinity to Cup too, having worked with Tyler Reddick when he made the step after a very successful year in the feeder series.

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Zilisch preparing for full-time Cup debut

When speaking about his impending move to stock car racing's premier series, Zilisch said: “It’s cool. I knew the whole world knew already, but still to be able to say it and have my name next to the word ‘Cup Series’ is really cool.

"So, I wasn’t going to try and hide from it, but it’s just a day that I’ve been dreaming of for a long time and I’m not going to let that kind of the idea that everybody already knows take away from the moment.”

Xfinity Series team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., a NASCAR legend in his own right, said of Zilisch: “I mean, the only thing I think it’s close to is probably Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson.

"So he might be even more of a comet … he might be even more rare than that, because I don’t know, man, if you all get a chance to spend time around him, you’ll realize how mature he is, and I think there’s probably a lot of parents in the room that would be amazed at his level of maturity.”

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