Dale Earnhardt Jr. offers stern warning to Connor Zilisch after COTA dustup with teammates

Connor Zilisch took the checkered flag in this past Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at COTA, his second victory in seven career starts.

But the main story surrounding the 18-year-old after the race was the several on-track incidents he had with his JR Motorsports teammates, most notably the contact late with Carson Kvapil while battling for the lead. That prompted a conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr., who said Zilisch needs to learn how to be a better teammate in the future.

“I talked to Connor after the race and I said, ‘I trust you’ll clean that up.’ He felt pretty bad about how that all went down,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download. “We had the beer toast here the other day — of course he did not have beer. He’s young, navigating the missteps. … He’s a talented kid, gonna have a bright future and learning how to be a better teammate. That’s just part of it. He’s gonna have teammates all his life. … You learn over the course of your career to be a good teammate and help your teammates when you can because that’s gonna come around to help you. Their crew chiefs see it, their crew chiefs then want to help you.

“That’s something that Connor has to improve on. And we’ve dealt with that in the past and I’m sure the shoe will be on the other foot. There will be a race somewhere else where it’ll be another teammate. And Connor will be on the bad end of something going down on the racetrack. That conversation is never ending. … If you got five good cars and five very capable racecar drivers, they’re gonna hit. They’re gonna run up front and they’re gonna have to battle each other for positions.”

Connor Zilisch admits fault in Xfinity Series race at COTA

Earnhardt said that before the season, JR Motorsports held a luncheon with all of its employees. There, he stressed the importance of everyone being good teammates, something he felt the team lacked in recent years.

“My main message to everyone was let’s try to do a better job this year of being good teammates,” Earnhardt said. “And I’m gonna be paying attention to that. We’ve had some great driver lineups here in the past. But we always haven’t been the best of teammates and we’re very selfish a lot of times. … You got Justin Allgaier who is a career Xfinity Series, JR Motorsports racer. This guy is living his life and making his living as a full-time driver here. Then, you got guys that are, ‘Hey, I’m only here for a year. If everything goes well, I’m only here for a year. This isn’t where I’m gonna live.’

“They’re not sitting there thinking me and Justin, we’ve got to work together for the next 10 years. They’re like, ‘How do I get to the next step, doesn’t matter what collateral damage there is.’ We’ve dealt with that over the last decade or more where guys are just out there trying to do their best and not in that teammate mindset because it doesn’t feel like they’re gonna be here that long anyways. But it’s what’s gonna happen. That’s another tough part is the guy just won the race. How the hell do you complain about anything? The guy just won the race in your car.”

Connor Zilisch admitted after his thrilling win he didn’t drive as clean a race as he would have liked: “Yeah that was tough. I mean, that was way harder than I wanted it to be, and I did not drive a clean race at all, and sorry to everyone I hit. I was kind of mentally fogged halfway through that race.”