"He is their future": Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains why NASCAR sensation Connor Zilisch won't end up at Hendrick Motorsports

Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently shared his take on the young NASCAR sensation Connor Zilisch. The future JR Motorsports driver won on his debut in the Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen, after which his stock rose pretty high.

Zilisch was a subject of conversation on his future boss' podcast show, "Dale Junior Download", as Earnhardt Jr. pointed to the big question surrounding the young NASCAR driver - how good is he? Earnhardt Jr. said the 18-year-old has some "very, very smart, sharp incredible talents" at road courses and what he did with lap times at Watkins Glen was "very rare" and "generational."

Earnhardt Jr. shared a near-certain trajectory that Zilisch's NASCAR future would take despite being associated with Hendrick Motorsports and JRM.

"He is a Trackhouse project, he is their future. And so we're just kind of really lucky that Rick Hendrick and Kelly Earnhardt Miller and me and everybody's really on board with giving this guy an opportunity even though in all likelihood he's never going to go up into the Hendrick pipeline," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. [22:50]

"We're willing to be a place where he can hone his skills and develop into the driver that Trackhouse wants him to be. So I'm really thankful that that we can do that here at JR Motorsports."

Earnhardt Jr. expressed his excitement about working with Connor Zilisch and helping him hone and polish his racecraft. He said that while the scope of polishing may not be much, he's still excited to have someone like Zilisch entering JR Motorsports, a driver who is already "elite" in some areas.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. points to the aspect of Connor Zilisch's racecraft he still has to work on

Talking about Connor Zilisch on his podcast show, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that the 18-year-old is already elite even at his age. Earnhardt Jr. predicted that as he gets more experienced and grows older behind the wheel of a racecar, he will only get better and better.

However, Earnhardt Jr. pointed to one aspect of Zilisch's craft on "Dale Junior Download" that he still has to work on, and that which the CARS Tour has helped him become better at.

"The ovals, he has some oval experience racing in the ARCA Cars Tour. I think that he's learned some very good racecraft on the ovals racing in the CARS Tour. I think that's probably the best thing about the CARS Tour is trying to get understanding racecraft and so forth," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. [22:05]

Earnhardt Jr. said there has to be more of Zilisch racing on the ovals to understand his true potential better because ovals are "a totally different discipline." He said that at ovals, a driver has to completely alter how he approaches a corner, and so on.