Heading into Saturday night’s Xfinity Series Championship race, Zilisch looked like the man to beat. The best friends, Connor Zilisch and Jesse Love, entered Phoenix Raceway with the score heavily tilted, 10 to one in favor of Love’s season wins. But with both drivers locked into the Championship 4, all previous victories meant nothing. It was a winner-take-all showdown under the desert lights.

But it all came undone for the 19-year-old phenom, who had a record-breaking season. Fighting back the tears in his post-race interview, he said, “You bust your a-s for 33 weeks and you know, I feel like we’ve done the best job we could all year long. And yeah, we just didn’t, didn’t have it today. So, you know, I’m so proud of this team. We have nothing to hang our heads about. But yeah, this one

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