Connor Zilisch claims Xfinity win at Pocono with crew chief Dale Jr

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returned to Victory Lane on Saturday in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Pocono Raceway but this time as the listed crew chief for Connor Zilisch.

The JR Motorsports No. 88 team lost their crew chief, Mardy Lindley, and was fined $10,000 for two missing lug nuts following the race at Nashville Superspeedway earlier in the month. Earnhardt said this was entirely the idea of Lindley, who texted him after the suspension came down.

The backstory here is important in that Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Butch Lindley, their fathers, raced each other on short tracks back in the 1970s. Both sons lost their fathers tragically and their children went on to have driving careers themselves, Mardy eventually becoming more successful as a mechanic and engineer.

So Earnhardt Jr., who built this very successful infrastructure was never going to volunteer to do something one of their engineers could do, but Lindley thought this was worth pursuing with Zilisch.

“JR Motorsports is a badass organization that can put someone like me on a pit box and still have a chance to win a race,” Earnhardt said afterwards.

To the point of the somewhat self-deprecating wit, Earnhardt was quick to point out all the help he had, including his own longtime Cup Series crew chief Steve Letarte, who was on the box helping him.

“Steve was sitting there and he’s like, ‘you should tell Connor over the radio exactly what your plan is because you need as many people to buy into this and stay out with you to create the buffer between you and the 17,’ so I get on the radio and say ‘alright Connor, here’s the plan man, blah, blah, blah, we’re going to do this and that,’ just telling the whole world,” Earnhardt recalled.

At this point, Zilisch walked into the press conference room and said, ‘I had no idea,’ that Letarte was even part of the brain trust.

“Yeah man, it was pretty neat to have Steve around, and was absolutely not going to pass up the opportunity to have him join me and stand over my shoulder today,” Earnhardt said. “His input certainly influenced our opportunity to win.”

As a result, Earnhardt became the ninth individual to have won a race in a national touring division as a driver, owner and crew chief.

Earnhardt also credited his engineers, including second year team member Tanner Naumann.

“I’m telling you, the kid was all over the fuel mileage today, and just any question I had about fuel mileage, how far we could go, he was confident and sturdy in his decisions and expectations,” Earnhardt said. “That’s just Mardy giving those guys confidence and belief in themselves.”

He also gave a shoutout to spotter Josh Williams, who has now won the past three NASCAR races at Pocono across all three divisions, with Ryan Blaney in Cup last year, Trucks on Friday with Layne Riggs and Saturday with Zilisch.

Earnhardt will generate headlines due to his stature but used the spotlight to showcase the team that’s been built around his likeness, including the business savviness of his sister Kelley Earnhardt-Miller for reaching the deal with Trackhouse Racing to loan Zilisch as a development driver while in the Xfinity Series.

With that said, it took some fortune and chaos for Zilisch to ultimately prevail.

Zilisch arguably had the second-best car on the day behind Chase Elliott in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 17 but the 2020 Cup Series champion got booted out of the lead on the penultimate restart due to an overeager Justin Allgaier.

Allgaier gets loose in the corner! 😱@jesselovejr1 takes over the lead on the restart! pic.twitter.com/KX2G52RwPe

— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) June 21, 2025

“I think he just ran in there too hard and caught a bad section of air or something and got turned sideways,” Elliott told reporters on pit road after the race. “At that point, I just saw him coming to my door out the window and then I have a choice of give him space or we’re both going to crash.

“At that point, we were screwed so it was worth having two destroyed race cars.”

Allgaier did come over and apologize and it was accepted by the fellow veteran.

That restart actually allowed Jesse Love to take the lead, and that point, it became another battle between two legitimate best friends. Zilisch had the faster car and worked over his friend clean to make the winning pass with six to go.

The pass that sealed the deal for @ConnorZilisch! ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/5jRN32oq6E

— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) June 21, 2025

“You know the saying I would wreck my mom for the win, but it’s also tough because I don’t want to go hang out on Monday and have him mad at me,” Zilisch said. “But a win is a win, and I might be nicer than usual if it were for fifth or whatever, but we’re going to race hard when it’s for the win. I’m going to race the way I expect to be raced and that’s just kind of the bottom line.”

And Zilisch, who is arguably the top Cup Series prospect in all of NASCAR, said he had no aversions to taking advice from Earnhardt. For his part, Earnhardt said most of his contributions to the victory on Saturday was more of a driver coach role.

“He’s got way more experience than I do,” Zilisch said. “He’s won here in a Cup car, twice and there’s no reason for me to not listen to him. He’s my crew chief. He’s not going to give me bad advice. … It was good to have a driver that has gone through this stuff before in my ear.

“He was giving me good information, to be here, or what to do when we get out of Turn 1, stuff like that. That really helped me. Obviously, all of our goal was to win and the advice was helpful for sure.”

For Earnhardt, who still races Late Model Stocks a handful of times a year alongside a Xfinity Series race once a year, acknowledges this might his last time in Victory Lane. With his daughters present for this one, it was a special moment for Crew Chief Dale too.

“You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get to take them to Victory Lane as a driver,” Earnhardt said. “So I love that they get to experience just things about NASCAR. I had such a great time growing up as a kid in this sport and just running around and I want them to have that opportunity and understand this is a place they could create opportunities for themselves down the road.

“I’ll let them go do what they want with their lives and steer themselves where they want to go and support everything they want to do but I certainly want them to know that NASCAR is an option that exists and there are so many possibilities.

“If they enjoy being around it, they could find ways to make a living at it.”

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