Brent Crews won the Watkins Glen pole but finished with a wrecked Toyota after a high-intensity battle with his on-track rival and off-track friend, Connor Zilisch. The TRICON Garage driver is now opening up about the late-race contact that shifted his truck's balance and ruined a dominant weekend.

“All the hectic restarts, hitting the wall with everybody,” Crews said afterward, while also fighting “really bad vibration because the tires were flat-spotted there at the end, left just kind of had a wrecked truck there, just trying to survive.”

The heavy contact from the No. 71 during one of the late restarts in the race ripped a large hole in the nose of his Toyota. The battle left the young TRICON Garage driver almost limping to the finish line, ending his race with severe front-end damage.

Crews was easily the fastest truck in the field over the weekend, winning the pole and even leading early laps. But the damage was extensive enough that it shifted the balance of his truck, which is quintessential at tracks such as Watkins Glen, especially at Turn 1 and the Esses, effectively ending the race.

When asked about how he felt regarding the contact from Connor Zilisch, Crews refused to directly blame him. “Yeah, no, I didn’t mean him in specific or anything,” he explained. “I think kind of everybody, like, it’s a cycle, right? Like when one person rubs into another, then when the next guy gets there, he’s gonna rub into you.”

However, it didn’t seem that the young driver just wanted to let Zilisch go scot-free, as he added, “I haven’t talked to [Zilisch] yet. I don’t know if he’ll talk to me or not, but definitely felt like he probably ran me harder than he needed to, especially with that many laps left, but we both have nothing to lose at the same time."

Even then, Crews closed the discussion calmly: “I’m sure it wasn’t on purpose, but when you race them hard up there, stuff happens.”

This seems like the end of the incident between the drivers, but we predict that it’s far from so, as the new rivalry that’s drawing up could be an interesting set to watch.

NASCAR’s next great road-course rivalry?

Several feel that this incident at Watkins Glen was just a sneak peek into this new brewing rivalry. Both Crews and Zilisch are teenage road-course racers, both have this aggressive braking style, both have unique multidisciplinary backgrounds, and it doesn’t even end there.

Their tendency to just attack the curbs, late braking into corners, and extremely physical racing on restarts is identical.

At Watkins Glen Trucks, they combined to lead 47 of 73 laps, with Crews winning pole at 1:10.222 while Zilisch led a race-high 28 laps before repeated contact escalated tensions.

Crews already has six ARCA wins, with successes also made at Trans-Am and TA2. Zilisch’s record also really shines a lot, who entered NASCAR with 10 Xfinity wins way back in 2025 and back-to-back victories at Watkins Glen.

Their rivalry could also be furthered by team dynamics, with all our classical favorites pitted against each other - Say, Toyota vs Chevrolet, or even JGR vs Trackhouse.

But beyond the rivalry, they share a great friendship. Crews has even gone on record saying that if he ever wants to lose to anyone, then it should only be Zilisch.

The season has a lot to go with road races at COTA, Sonoma, and Chicago, and with this rivalry brewing, it promises to be straight-up awesome.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Uday Jakhar

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason