Rising 20-year-old NASCAR star and Charlotte native signs with Hendrick Cup team
Connor Zilisch entered 2026 with comparisons to all-time great NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon.
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Now, Zilisch is joining him.
Hendrick Motorsports announced Monday afternoon that Zilisch — the 20-year-old phenom from Charlotte, North Carolina — will drive the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet for HMS beginning in 2028. The driver signed the multi-year agreement with the winningest organization in NASCAR Cup Series history earlier Monday.
Gordon, who earned motorsport-wide and national acclaim as a driver for HMS in the late 90s and all of the 2000s before retiring in 2015, is also the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports.
“Connor is a truly gifted young racer,” Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports, wrote in a statement Monday. “His talent behind the wheel is exceptional, but I’m even more impressed by the person he is. When someone with that kind of ability and character becomes available, you do everything you can to bring them into your organization.
“We have tremendous confidence in Connor, and we believe he’s the right driver to build on the legacy of the No. 48 Ally team for many years to come.”
Zilisch is presumably under contract with Trackhouse Racing — his current team — through the 2027 NASCAR Cup Series season. (He signed a multi-year agreement on Trackhouse’s Cup team, starting in 2026.)
The young NASCAR rising star will be replacing Alex Bowman in the seat. Bowman announced in July that he will be stepping away from full-time Cup Series competition after the 2027 season. The 33-year-old driver has missed parts of three seasons in the past five years — including in 2026, which saw him miss four races due to vertigo. He also missed time in previous seasons due to a concussion, as well as due to a back injury.
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“I think with what went on in March, I feel like in my head, I had looked at this year being ‘it’ quite a bit and talked about that,” Bowman said in his retirement press conference. “But yeah, just trying to make the best decision for me and obviously the best decision for Hendrick Motorsports. I think I really want to end on a more positive note than how this year’s been, so that gave me a little more motivation to come back and go one more year.”
Zilisch hasn’t had the best 2026 to date. The rookie Cup driver only has 257 total points on the year — an insurmountable 712 points below the playoff cut-line. Of all drivers who have raced all 24 Cup races to date, he is second-to-last, only behind Cody Ware. His two Trackhouse Cup teammates sit well ahead of him, too: Ross Chastain sits 18th; Shane van Gisbergen sits 16th.
Prior to his Cup struggles, though, Zilisch flashed some pretty remarkable potential. At the O’Reilly Series level — the series right below the premier-series Cup level — he proved to be great. In 2025, he won a series-most 10 races only to lose the championship winner-take-all finale. Zilisch also won twice at IMSA before dominating the ARCA circuits and getting his first chance at a national NASCAR ride in 2025.
“This is one of those moments you dream about as a kid,” Zilisch said in a news release Monday. “Hendrick Motorsports has always represented the standard in our sport, and being entrusted to help continue that legacy means everything to me. The chance to drive a Chevrolet for Mr. Hendrick, carry the colors of an incredible partner like Ally and compete alongside some of the best drivers and people in racing is what you work so hard for.
“I’m grateful for the confidence they’ve shown in me, and it’s my job to prove they made the right decision.”
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