After monumentally high hopes for the 18-year-old’s Cup Series debut, Connor Zilisch crashed out of the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix Sunday afternoon and will finish in last place. Zilisch showed speed and the ability to race through the veteran cup field on Sunday after contact on the first lap meant that the young driver drove his entire race with sustained damage. After qualifying 14th, the first lap incident sent Zilisch down the running order on the start.In the second stage, Zilisch showed he was one of the five fastest cars as he ran from outside the top 30 back up to his starting position of 14th. Unfortunately, on the opening lap of the stage three restart, Zilisch’s teammate, Daniel Suaréz, hit the inside barrier on the exit of turn 19. Zilisch ran straight into the spinning Suaréz and ended up stuffed in the tire barrier. The young driver exited the vehicle on his own accord as the safety crews put out a small fire. “I saw him spinning off the left, and I thought he was going to keep going that direction or stay there. I guess he flipped back right and started coming back towards me,” Zilisch told media, including R&T, after being released from the infield care center. “Really unfortunate way to end my Cup Series debut. We were one of the top five fastest cars in the second stage there; we went from outside the top 30 to 14th and felt really good about the car. We made a lot of gains from practice and qualifying.” Suaréz was able to limp back to the pits, but after his team surveyed the damage, the car retired, technically completing one more lap than Zilisch. The two Trackhouse drivers checked on each other before individually talking to the media outside of the infield care center.While Zilisch was disappointed in his finish, he’s happy with the experience he gained racing through the Cup field and learning from the Cup Series regulars’ racing intelligence.”How to race against veterans,” Zilisch shared, was his biggest lesson of the race. “These guys are all really smart and very calculated.”Related StoriesVictoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.