Connor Zilisch snaps 1980s NASCAR record despite brutal playoff blow

Connor Zilisch may have extended his winless streak to two races on Saturday afternoon at Kansas, but he did walk away with a new Xfinity Series record in his pocket.

The race at Kansas Speedway was won by Brandon Jones to lock the Joe Gibbs Racing man into the playoff Round of 8, with the points picked up by Zilisch and JR Motorsports team-mate Justin Allgaier meaning that three drivers have secured their progression with a race to spare.

Zilisch came home in second place behind Jones, extending his string of top-five finishes to 16 in a row and breaking Sam Ard's single-season Xfinity Series record.

Ard's record had stood for 41 years since he set it back in 1984, a full 22 years before Zilisch was even born.

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Zilisch: New record a credit to JR Motorsports

Zilisch's failure to win in either of the first two postseason races is something of a surprise given his utter dominance at the end of the regular season, which saw him win seven of the last eight races to burst into the playoffs as the overwhelming title favorite.

Next up on the calendar is the Charlotte Roval though, and the teenager's noted excellence at road courses (winning at COTA, Sonoma and Watkins Glen and finishing behind specialist Shane van Gisbergen at Chicago) should see him right in the mix to avoid his longest winless streak since June.

"It was tough," he said of Saturday's race. "It's a new right-side tire for us this year and it was definitely a lot different, but hats off to the team, my pit crew did an awesome job and we did a solid job executing all day long with a car that I didn't think was winning-capable, except for a point in Stage 3 where I thought we had a chance at it."

Speaking on his new record specifically, he added: "It just shows that these JR Motorsports cars are as fast as Xfinity Mobile every week, and they make our job a lot easier as a driver. It's really cool to not only have that record but also go 16 weeks without a DNF, there's a lot of things we can be proud of as a team."

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