Connor Zilisch Goes from Last to First for the Second Time in Five Races; 14-Year-Old TA2 Rookie Ben Maier Scores Third Top-10 of the Season
Today’s victory was Connor Zilisch’s third of the season and the third of his career. He qualified on the pole during qualifying this morning but was sent to the back of the 34-car grid due to a post-qualifying technical inspection infraction. His victory June 5 in the second race of a weekend doubleheader on the downtown Detroit street circuit also came from the back of the grid after originally qualifying on the pole.
Zilisch’s lap of 1:31.350 earned the recently turned 17-year-old the Omalagato Fastest Lap of the Race Award.
Connor Zilisch, Driver, No. 7 Waukegan Farms Quarter Horses/Planet Cowboy/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro:
“That was wild, to say the least. I can’t say enough about my team. They believe in me, trust me, and they work so hard for me and I couldn’t be more grateful for them, Silver Hare Racing, they do such a good job. Maurice and Laura Hull gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, to come out here and race cars and to fulfill my dream. This is one of the events that I’ve always wanted to win ever since that first year. So to come out here and get that win is super special to me and super special to the guys, as well. They invest a lot, being away from their families. It feels so good to get this win for all my team. I was having radio issues pretty much the whole race, so I didn’t know how long we had, what place I was in at almost any point in the race until toward the end, when my radio came back. That’s when I realized that I had a good shot at this and I’ve just got to have good, clean restarts and hopefully have some green-flag runs so I could get by some of these guys.”
Ben Maier, Driver, No. 75 Silver Hare Racing/Gel Blaster/Waukegan Farms Quarter Horses Chevrolet Camaro:
“It went pretty well. I was off to a slow start at the beginning of the weekend – wasn’t that fast, but then I picked up speed in qualifying, qualified 13th. I was running well in the race and made it up to eighth or ninth, but then I made a mistake, blew past a turn and lost a bunch of positions by the time I made it back on track. I made it all the way back up to ninth from about 15th. Made a mistake but recovered from it, which is a good thing. I feel pretty good about how things have been going. Now that I have more and more experience, the more seat time I have, the more comfortable I am. Connor is amazing. He’s done this twice – here and at Detroit. I guess he’s good on street courses. The team is amazing, working so well on the cars, getting everything done. The setups are good. Just looking forward to keep getting better with this Silver Hare team.”
Silver Hare Racing is a fulltime competitor in the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli’s newly renamed Big Machine Vodka Spiked Coolers TA2 Series. The multicar team has won the TA2 Masters class championship three times (2018, 2019 and 2020) with driver and team co-owner Maurice Hull. Under the leadership of Hull’s wife, co-owner and team manager Laura Hull, Silver Hare Racing provides a variety of services that includes private testing and arrive-and-drive programs. The team offers six professionally built and maintained TA2 chassis from Howe Racing and operates from a state-of-the-art facility in High Point, North Carolina. For more information, visit SilverHareRacing.com.
