Did Connor Zilisch Cheat To Win The Portland NASCAR Xfinity Series Race? Here’s What Denny Hamlin And Dale Earnhardt Jr. Have To Say
Connor Zilisch won his eighth race of the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Portland on Saturday, but not everyone was thrilled with how he did it.
The JR Motorsports driver dominated the road course race from pole, leading 70 of 78 laps and sweeping both stages on the way to victory, but it was the way he led the first lap of the overtime restart that raised a few eyebrows.
Portland International Raceway’s first two turns are a tight chicane that bunches up the field after a NASCAR-style two-wide restart, and the penalty for missing it is to drive through a set of staggered barriers set up in the infield section. They are meant to slow the cars down to make it a longer route in time, but it doesn’t always turn out that way.
Zilisch missed it once earlier in the race and didn’t lose much track position. On the final restart he locked up his brakes and couldn’t make Turn One then proceeded to drive through the barriers as the next five cars behind him also missed it, but came into contact with each other and fell behind.
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“I ran it in practice and I was like, ‘man, it’s not really that slow,'” Zilisch said during his post-race interview.
“So as soon as I hit the brakes, I don’t know how I wheel-hopped and, yea, I kinda just committed to it as soon as I know I wasn’t going to make the corner and, yea it worked out. So, I wasn’t really planning on it, but last resort you gotta do what you gotta do.”
Zilisch didn’t have much to lose as he was already locked into the playoffs and leading the points standings, He also already has a contract with Trackhouse Racing to move up to the Cup Series in 2026, so the only thing on the line if he was disqualified was the regular season championship, but NASCAR had already officiated the rule to allow for the drive-through and Zilisch was declared the winner.
It was a hot topic after the race and both Denny Hamlin and Zilisch’s team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. addressed it on their podcasts.
“From what I understand, is that Xfinity teams were practicing running that chicane during practice,” Hamlin said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast.
“They were planning on blowing turn one because the net time loss was not substantial, and especially if your’e bottled up on a restart it was actually a gain.”
Hamlin agreed with Zilisch’s “don’t hate the player,” attitude about using the rules to his advantage and said that his teammate Ty Gibbs told him he did the same thing at a previous Xfinity Series race at Portland in the rain where he went from 26th on a restart to the top 5 by skipping the turns and the traffic that was jammed up in there.
“The penalty for cutting the corners is not worse than the racetrack itself,” co-host TJ Majors said on the “Dale Jr Download,” criticizing the rules rather than Zilisch’s creative interpretation of them. “The shortcut for missing a corner should not be faster.”
Earnhardt, who co-owns the CARS Tour late model racing series, said that if he ran NASCAR he “would not want this to be the result.”
“That being the very first turn you’re going to enter, after a restart, for any race track, is a bad idea.”
He conceded that it might be better suited to other racing series that also use the track, like IndyCar, but that it is not suited for NASCAR.
“Just get rid of the [expletive deleted] corner,” he bluntly added. “Nobody likes this corner.”
The issue is a moot point for now, as Portland has been dropped from the Xfinity Series schedule for 2026, but NASCAR said it may return in future seasons.
“I would just say, I’m glad we’re not going back,” Earnhardt said. “And it’s nothing to do with location or anything else but the fact that that turn one two combination is not good.”