While battling for the victory in Saturday’s Mission 200 at Watkins Glen International, JR Motorsports teammates Connor Zilisch and Shane Van Gisbergen have come together, resulting in a hard crash for the driver of the No. 9 Kubota Chevrolet.
Van Gisbergen was holding the lead with about 20 laps to go, due to the timing of a lucky caution, when the pair came together at the exit of Turn 6, running wide, and resulting in the No. 88 Chevrolet merging back onto the track, right into the right-rear corner of the Auckland, New Zealand-native.
With how fiercely they’ve been battling on the road courses this season, I feel like this was bound to happen at least once.
That’s gonna be end of day for Shane Van Gisbergen, and could derail what looked like a sure thing for Connor Zilisch.#NASCAR
— Joseph Srigley (@joe_srigley) August 9, 2025
The NASCAR Cup Series regular then went spinning into Turn 7, before taking a brutal impact into the outside barrier, which ultimately ended the afternoon of the fifth JR Motorsports entry.
Throughout the Summer, both Zilisch and Van Gisbergen have been showing their strength on the road courses in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, going head-to-head at the Chicago Street Course, Sonoma Raceway, and now, Watkins Glen.
Yeah, not ideal. Pretty gutted, really. Gutted for the JR Motorsports guys,” said Shane Van Gisbergen. “Our car wasn’t great, but we still managed to get ourselves in good position. And looked great. Kubota had some cool guests here. Yeah, pretty average way to end it.”
“I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll watch it later, and work it out. But I don’t know yet,” he added.
The two drivers will need to figure out this disagreement, though, as they will be teammates in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Watkins Glen, driving for Trackhouse Racing.
For Zilisch, though, his sights are still set on the victory.
