Love Edges Zilisch for ARCA Win at Watkins Glen

(Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Broken sway bar and all, Connor Zilisch seemed destined for his first ARCA Menards Series victory with five laps to go at Watkins Glen International.

Suddenly, a caution.

Jack Wood spun exiting Turn 1 and hit the Armco barrier, bringing out a yellow with five laps to go.

Then it rained.

Would ARCA call the General Tire 100? Or would race control let drivers come down pit road for wet-weather tires?

It chose the latter.

Most contenders came down pit road for wets, but Kris Wright led a group that stayed out. After the non-competitive pit stops, Zilisch lined up second on the inside with Brent Crews and Jesse Love behind him.

Zilisch launched past Wright and the others on slicks and into the lead by several car lengths. He motored out of the bus stop, but Love started to cut into his deficit. Not knowing what Turn 6 would entail, Zilisch said he “took it easy,” and Love got to his door on the exit of Turn 7.

They touched — but Love had all the momentum to win the drag race to the line for his eighth ARCA victory of the season for Venturini Motorsports and his fourth in a row, dating back to Pocono Raceway in July.

“I just knew that I was going to be really aggressive,” Love said in his postrace press conference. “I thought that when it got that wet that Connor might get complacent because I’ve done that so many times, and we went into the bus stop and he left it early. I just smelled a little blood in the water. I didn’t get through the carousel that well, so my last-ditch effort was to use all the track off [Turn] 6. I did that move in sim a few times, so I was pretty confident about it.

“[Zilisch] got complacent and I was able to get to his bumper. I wasn’t going to wreck him because he’s my best friend, I love the kid and it was his day. But I thought if I could just nudge him up a little bit and get him in the rumble strips on exit.”

Zilisch exited his car in dejection. The young road course ace had led since Lap 6 when he got by Cup Series star Corey LaJoie and came oh-so-close to a win in his first series start.

“It’s tough when you’re leading. You don’t know what you can push to and what the track’s like,” Zilisch said. “You’re leading, you’ve got six car lengths, and going into the second to last corner there I just took it easy. I didn’t want to wreck and lose the race on the last few corners there, so tried taking it easy, but I took it too easy, I guess. Jesse got to my bumper on the last corner, put me off and I got into the rumble strips. There’s no grip in the paint out there, so I had no drive off in the last corner and just lost all traction and lost the lead.”

Shortly after the Lap 21 competition caution, Zilisch suffered a broken front sway bar and started to lose pace to Crews and Love. Eventually, he said he learned how to drive the car despite the mechanical failure and maintained the gap over second and third.

But the caution erased all 0f his hard-earned work to stay ahead.

“It was really difficult [to handle],” Zilisch explained about the mechanical issue. “When it first happened, I didn’t really think I was going to be able to keep the lead. They started closing on me and then I started to figure out how to drive with that. It changed everything.”

Crews finished third in his first career ARCA start. Joe Gibbs Racing driver William Sawalich finished fourth and road-course expert Dale Quarterly came home fifth. LaJoie won the pole earlier Friday afternoon but suffered a mechanical failure early on and finished 15th. Xfinity Series driver Parker Retzlaff finished 18th after a mechanical failure led to a fire in a one-off for Young’s Motorsports.

General Tire 100 Results