Zilisch Will Win Rookie of the Year. He Knows How Funny That Is.

Connor Zilisch is going to win the Cup Series Rookie of the Year award, and he is the first one who will tell you how strange that sounds.

Zilisch is the only rookie in the Cup Series this year. He drives the No. 88 for Trackhouse Racing, he is 20 years old, and he has been the only name in the Sunoco Rookie of the Year race all season. That was true in February, and it is still true now, heading into the finale at Homestead. If he shows up, he wins it. That is the whole race.

That being said, Zilisch knows exactly how that looks after the year he has had, and he is not pretending otherwise.

He came into this season as the most anticipated rookie in NASCAR. He won 10 races in the O'Reilly Series in 2025, he was named Rookie of the Year there, and he broke a 41-year-old record with 16 straight top fives. People expected him to step into Cup and keep going. That is not what happened.

His Cup rookie season has been hard. He has two top 10s, seventh at Sonoma and seventh at Gateway, he has led nine laps all year, and he heads into Sunday's finale ranked 33rd in the standings. That is a long way from the driver who won nine times in 14 races one summer in the O'Reilly Series.

Zilisch talked about it at Homestead on Friday, in his media availability before the finale, and he was honest about it in a way most drivers would not be. "I'd be lying if I said it was what I hoped for," he said. "It certainly hasn't been a picture-perfect year by any means, but I'm just glad the last few months we've started to show some growth and I feel like I've gotten better as the year has gone on."

"There's been some rough patches for me, for sure, and that's been mentally and inside the racecar," he said. "It's definitely taken a toll on me, but these last few months, I feel like we've been qualifying better, running better, and at least in the game; staying on the lead lap and just doing the basics."

The hardest part, in his own words, was not the speed. It was the losing, and having to find a reason to keep going when winning was not on the table. "My entire life racing, I've raced for wins. I've been the guy to beat. I've showed up to the track and expected to win. This year, I haven't had that," Zilisch said. "I think trying to find motivation when you're not racing for the win every weekend is something that I've never experienced in my life. I've never dealt with that kind of adversity."

He kept going back to that word, motivation, and to the goals he had to set instead. "I had to find a way to keep myself motivated and my team motivated through races where you're not contending for wins every week," he said. "I'd say that's been the biggest thing that I've learned is just trying to find goals that are achievable and just focus on those and block out the outside noise."

Then came the award itself, and Zilisch did not hide how he feels about it. "The whole Rookie of the Year thing, it's just kind of funny to me because I feel like every time you're here or at a media scrum or whatever, it's always just man, it's a struggle, I hope I do better next year," he said. "But for all that, you're going to have this title for the rest of your career, the rest of your life."

"Yeah, I just hope the stat sheets never show how many were racing for it in parentheses next to it because if that happens, then it'll be a little embarrassing (laughs)," he said. "But yeah, I guess I have to accept my award and take it. If I was a betting man, I would have put a lot of money on the fact that I would have won Rookie of the Year in February. But unfortunately, I can't bet on our sport. If I could, then I probably wouldn't have made much money because there would have been great odds."

"But yeah, it's kind of just comical after the year I've had to have to go to the banquet and collect an award," he said. "I feel like I shouldn't be going, but here we are. I'll take it."

That is a remarkable thing for a 20-year-old driver to say out loud, and it is also the right thing to say. Zilisch is not celebrating a great rookie season. He is accepting an award he won by default, and he knows it, and he is not going to pretend the season went the way he wanted it to.

There is a future here, though, and that is why this story is not just a joke about a one-driver race. Zilisch has already signed a multi-year deal with Hendrick Motorsports, beginning in 2028, when he moves into the No. 48 after Alex Bowman. People have tried to find a way to get him there in 2027, and Zilisch shut that down at Homestead. "I would not want to leave Trackhouse after a season like this," he said. "I want to end on a good note. I want to be able to leave saying that we achieved all we could and gave it our best effort, which we have."

"I get to learn in a lower-pressure situation with less eyeballs on me," he said of staying at Trackhouse for one more year. "I feel like I can just go out and focus on myself."

He is not taking the Hendrick deal as a reason to coast, either. "It helps, but I still put pressure on myself every weekend to perform, and I expect a lot out of myself," Zilisch said. "It is nice knowing that I can have bad weeks and not have to worry about losing my job."

What he wants next year is simple, and he said it plainly. "Yeah, I just want to do better than I did this year, honestly," he said. "I want to race for wins. I want to get to be on the lead lap each weekend and feel like I'm in the fight. I just want to feel more at home and be able to have confidence in myself to go out and do my job every week and succeed."

For all the rough patches, Zilisch still sees the year for what it was, a start. "I don't think many drivers have raced in the Cup Series at 20 years old, so the fact that I was able to do this at this age and get a jump start on it is great," he said. "At the end of the day, I'm still living out my dream. I'm grateful for everything that I've been able to do, but it's tough to remember that sometimes."

So yes, Connor Zilisch will be the 2026 Cup Series Rookie of the Year. He will collect the award, and he will have it for the rest of his career. He hopes nobody puts a number in parentheses next to it. The rest of us should probably just remember the part he got right. He was 20, he was the only rookie, he had a brutal year, and he is going to Hendrick anyway.

Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments whether you think a Rookie of the Year award still means something when there is only one rookie, or whether Zilisch is right to laugh about it.