Connor Zilisch’s bad luck seems to continue for this season. Just when it looked like he could have a promising NASCAR Cup Series outing at the Chicagoland Speedway, his day came to a crushing end. Fans on social media have now reacted to the same. 

The No. 88 Trackhouse Racing driver’s race at the eero 400 came to an end as soon as it began. Shortly after the green flag fell, RFK driver Ryan Preece spun at Turn 2 after contact with John Hunter Nemechek and slid in front of Zilisch. 

The 19-year-old tried to avoid the wreck by swerving left but lost control of the car and hit the inside wall. After the crash, he radioed his team, saying (as reported by journalist Matt Weaver on X), 

"Spun into me. ... I can't get anything to go for me."

His car was towed to the garage after it took a significant amount of damage. This marked Zilisch’s seventh DNF in his NASCAR Cup Series rookie season and his fifth in the last seven races.

NASCAR fans soon took to their social media to react to the crash. 

NASCAR fans react to Connor Zilisch’s DNF at Chicagoland

Under the X post uploaded by The Athletic reporter Jeff Gluck about the crash between Connor Zilisch and Ryan Preece, several fans flooded the comments section.

One fan pointed out that Zilisch overreacted as Preece slid in front of him. They commented,

"No contact on Zilisch he just overreacted & crashed him.  He has to turn how to save the car instead of turning it into the wall every week."

Another echoed the sentiment, as they wrote,

"I don't think there was any contact with the 88. Seemed like he tried to avoid the wreck and lost control."

Connor Zilisch has often been hailed as 'Jeff Gordon 2.0' after winning across multiple divisions. However, this comparison has now been crushed in his rookie Cup season as he currently stands in 34th place ahead of Cody Ware.

One fan took a swipe at the hype around the No.88 Trackhouse driver as they wrote, 

"Yall tried to act like Zilisch was the next coming of Jeff Gordon and he is in the fight of his life to stay in front of Cody Ware in points."

While another fan expressed concern over the Trackhouse driver’s long-term plans as they wrote,

"If I'm Zilisch, I am seriously contemplating a return to full-time O'Rielly's competition. This level of atrocious luck, combined with a s***box race car that qualifies amongst the r****** every single week, is going to sink his d*** career. This cannot be worth it." 

Gluck put out another post that claimed that John Hunter Nemechek hit Preece, which led to the incident. Under that, a fan referenced the beef between JHN and Carsoh Hocevar from last month, writing,

"So Carson’s allowed to wreck half the field and people come of out the woodwork to defend him, but when I try to defend John Hunter for an unintentional incident, it’s not ok"

What did you think of the opening lap crash between Connor Zilisch and Ryan Preece? Let us know in the comments. 

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Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Yash Kotak