There's nothing we can always count on sports fans to consistently deliver quite like some good old-fashioned overreaction.
Connor Zilisch is having about the worst possible rookie season in the NASCAR Cup Series that anybody could have imagined and then some. That's undeniable. He's 34th out of 35 full-time drivers in points through 16 races. He's ahead of only Cody Ware, who hardly even counts.
Not great for the latest of about a half-dozen different young drivers who've been labeled the "next Jeff Gordon".
Two weekends ago at Michigan International Speedway, Zilisch's season reached rock bottom (for now) when he spun twice in the first 10 laps, the second of which ended his day with his third consecutive last-place finish. And everybody is absolutely losing their minds.
No, Connor Zilisch isn't a bust, and this is all going to look so silly
Zilisch is the latest victim of the double-edged sword that is maximum prospect overhype. Somebody lights it up in the developmental ranks, and the moment they graduate to the top level, the same people who were beating their drum turn around and call them a disappointment because they expect every rookie to contend for the championship as if it's still 2002.
Newsflash: most rookies are bad. Ty Gibbs' rookie year was bad. William Byron's rookie year was very bad. Joey Logano's rookie year was bad, save for one fluke rain-shortened pit strategy win, and so was his second year, and his third year, and his fourth year.
Want to go further back? We can. Kurt Busch finished 27th in points in 2001. Dale Earnhardt Jr. won twice in 2000, but had only three additional top 10 finishes. Or, dare we mention Wonder Boy himself, the most perfect half-man, half-fable to ever hold a steering wheel who was incapable of committing any human error whatsoever, recording 11 DNFs in 1993.
Yes, Zilisch is performing worse than all of them. He's also in a tougher situation than all of them. He's 19 years old. The Cup Series and O'Reilly Auto Parts Series cars drive nothing alike today. And he drives for the same dumpster fire of a Trackhouse Racing team that has Ross Chastain behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in points.
Of course he's struggling. If he wasn't, we'd be talking about how he's on pace to break every record in the book.
But when you're a rookie, you never get the benefit of the doubt. Your mistakes get amplified and all context gets ignored. After Michigan, you would think every bad thing that's happened to Zilisch this year is all his fault.
"Just look at his DNFs!"
"Three last-place finishes in a row!"
"Biggest bust since Casey Atwood!"
We won't talk about how his result the week before Michigan was due to his car exploding a brake rotor while he was on the move from the back of the field. Or how the week before that, he was taken out after Austin Cindric lost control and spun across the track directly into him.
Or how the week before that, he ran an incident-free fifth place in the All-Star Race, even if it didn't count as an official result.
On both road courses thus far, the tracks where everyone expected Zilisch to immediately contend for wins, he had top five speed. He was spun out twice at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) and suffered a flat tire at Watkins Glen International, relegating him to 14th and 20th place finishes.
It's not as if the flashes haven't been there. And it's certainly not as if he can't figure it out. In fact, Zilisch is running extremely similarly to how teammate Shane van Gisbergen, who is nearly twice his age, ran the first half of last year. He too was once bringing out cautions every week. He too was once in the unenviable "worst not named Cody Ware" points position.
And look at him now.
Zilisch will be fine. And as usual, the hot-take artists will eventually look like every bit the overreacting attention-seekers they are.
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