Marks not worried about Trackhouse losing Zilisch – yet

Justin Marks is not concerned about the future of Connor Zilisch – at least not yet.

Zilisch, who is in the midst of his Cup Series rookie season at Trackhouse Racing, remains one of NASCAR’s biggest prospects, and has reportedly drawn interest from Hendrick Motorsports, which will have a seat open for 2027 following the retirement of Alex Bowman.

Zilisch is under contract with Trackhouse Racing through the 2027.

“He’s probably coveted by everybody,” Justin Marks told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio this week. “He’s a very talented driver. He’s a very smart young man. He has a big career in front of him, and for us, we are committed to Connor, and Connor is committed to us through the end of 2027.

“And 2028, although it will be here quickly, is a little too far away, I think, for us to really be spending any bandwidth on at the moment. What we’re trying to solve for the moment is get him the experience, get him comfortable, we’ve got a great relationship with Red Bull and a lot of the other partners on the Chevrolet he drives.”

Zilisch burst onto the NASCAR national series scene in 2024 with a pole in his Craftsman Truck Series debut at Circuit of the Americas. Later that same year, he won in his O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut at Watkins Glen.

Across the three series, Zilisch has made 80 starts. Zilisch put together a historic year in 2025 in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series with 10 wins and over 1,000 laps led en route to finishing second in the championship.

In the Cup Series, it has been a rocky rookie season as the 20-year-old goes through the learning curve and Trackhouse Racing works to re-establish itself as a contender. Zilisch is 34th in the standings, second-to-last of full-time drivers, with one top-10 finish and eight DNFs.

“It’s important for us to be executing on the agreement, the relationship, and the partnership we have now,” continued Marks. “It’s on Trackhouse to continue to work really, really hard to try to give him good race cars. It’s on him to do the work to be prepared and to show up and be the best race car driver he can be.

"I think 2027 can be a really big year for him and for us – he’ll have a year under his belt, and he can go to all these races for the second, third, or fourth time and really kind of know what he’s up against. That’s really where our mind is at right now.

“When it comes time to talk about the future, we’ll have that conversation with him knowing that he’s a highly sought-after driver. I think those conversations around him probably want to start sooner rather than later, and it’s our job to present ourselves as a place that he wants to be. If that happens, he’ll be at Trackhouse for a while into the future. If something different happens, then that’s the way it goes. We’ll go on and try to be the best we can be. But right now, I just want to try to get him up the order and, hopefully, get him into victory lane while he’s contracted with us now.”

Bowman’s impending retirement opens up a seat alongside Kyle Larson, William Byron, and Chase Elliott. The last time that Hendrick Motorsports had a driver lineup that did not include one of those four was in 2020, the year before Larson arrived and Jimmie Johnson’s final year with the organization.