RICHMOND, Va. — Ross Chastain saw his Trackhouse Racing teammate Connor Zilisch fall from his car in a victory celebration a week ago and potentially could miss a race (or more) with a broken collarbone.
But despite the danger that Chastain witnessed, he has no plans to change his victory celebration.
An eighth-generation watermelon farmer, Chastain is known to stand atop his car and smash a watermelon.
“We’re good,” Chastain said. “It’s recommended to do that. No hesitation here. If we’re smashing watermelons, we’re doing OK.
“It is a good reminder that there’s dangerous things in life everywhere we go.”
From serious concern to uncontrollable laughter, drivers had a variety of responses to Zilisch’s fall and injury — and to how they might approach their victory celebrations.
Connor Zilisch waves to the crowd after the win during the NASCAR Xfinity Series Mission 200 at the Glen
Zilisch, a 19-year-old driver who leads the Xfinity standings for JR Motorsports and who is set to move to Cup next season as the soon-to-be-announced replacement of Daniel Suarez at Trackhouse Racing, feels lucky he wasn’t more seriously injured in the Aug. 9 incident.
The fall occurred when he had one foot on the driver’s window sill and one foot on the roof. He had not tucked the window net (the driver’s side does not have a window installed but instead a mesh net used to keep debris out but can be quickly unhooked for the driver exit). When the team doused him with water after he got out of the car, his foot slipped on the net and he fell hard to the ground. He indicated he was briefly knocked unconscious.
Zilisch had surgery on Tuesday. The Xfinity Series had the Richmond weekend off and Zilisch’s status for this upcoming weekend’s race at Daytona is still to be determined.
RFK Racing driver and co-owner Brad Keselowski said he won’t tell his drivers how to celebrate.
Connor Zilisch takes the checkered flag to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series Mission 200 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International
“I’m not looking to be the car police on what you can and can’t do,” Keselowski said. “It certainly was an interesting moment. That’s something I’ve never seen before.”
Keselowski, who once sliced his hand open when he accidentally broke a champagne bottle in victory lane, said he probably won’t stand on his car.
“I think I’ll just grab my American flag and stand outside of it,” Keselowski said. “But man, that was sure scary. The video … because now that we know Connor is OK, it’s one of the funniest damn videos I’ve ever seen in my life.
“We’ve all had our moments.”
While Keselowski sounds like he will watch the video for laughs, one driver who won’t watch it is Christopher Bell.
“I didn’t watch it,” Bell said. “Obviously, it broke the internet. I heard about it and all my friends are texting me, like, ‘Oh my gosh, did you see this?’ And they’re sending me the video of it.
“I can’t open it. I won’t watch it. That’s too grueling. I’m not going to watch.”
Bell said he doesn’t watch any accident — on the track or off the track — if someone gets injured. He said he will learn about what caused it and any preventative measures to take, but he doesn’t need to watch it.
And he also doesn’t need anyone to tell him that he shouldn’t climb atop the car.
“No one’s told me that, but I can promise you, I’ve done my last car stand for a while,” Bell said. “That’s for sure. That’s just so eye-opening and scary. And it’s bad. It’s really bad.”
NASCAR seems more than willing to leave it up to the drivers. It does not want drivers to jump up-and-down on top of the car after a race because of the potential that it would have on the integrity of the car before it goes through post-race technical inspection.
But if a driver wants to put a foot on the roof or climb up on top, that’s fine.
Drivers obviously like the freedom to have that choice. Chase Elliott, who once broke his leg snowboarding just prior to a race weekend, was all for drivers getting on top of their cars.
“Stuff happens,” Elliott said. “That’s life. The guy was enjoying a great day. He messed up.
“It was an accident. I don’t fault him for enjoying his moment. He rightfully earned that and whatever he wants to do, he should do it. … If something warranted a climb, yeah absolutely [I’d do it].”
William Byron, who won the Daytona 500, compared Zilisch’s injury to falling down a flight of stairs.
“I hated to see Connor go through that, so that was tough to see, but I think we all will learn a little bit from it,” Byron said. “And I’m sure the next guy’s probably nervous to get out of the car.
“But we’ve done it for years. It’s kind of like falling down stairs. You do it every day, and then something happens. You can’t just live in bubble wrap. So it just is part of life, I guess.”
Ryan Preece has started 212 races and seeks his first Cup win. Nothing will stop him from celebrating that initial victory.
“I’d climb up on top,” Preece said. “And I potentially might even do a backflip. But I don’t think the backflip would go very well.”
The winner of the race Saturday night at Richmond didn’t hesitate to stand on his car. Austin Dillon stood on the driver’s side window sill both on the frontstretch after the race as well as in victory lane.
Dillon said they had a crew member at the car “to make sure this [window net] is inside the car now so the window net doesn’t trip me up.”
Austin Cindric, one of the tallest drivers in the Cup garage, said for him, it would be a “big tree, fall hard” moment.
“It’s probably not going to stop me from being overly excited when I get out of the race car,” Cindric said. “If you’re going up on top, I guess the moral of the story there is you might as well just stand on the roof.”
And if something happens, it happens.
“You do this sport long enough, you’re bound to have a moment that you wish you could have back,” Keselowski said. “I’ve got quite a few of them. And Connor got his first one.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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