The Silver Hare Racing duo of Maurice Hull and Connor Zilisch are hitting the home stretch of this year’s Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli campaign as they set up shop in New York’s scenic Finger Lakes Region for this weekend’s Watkins Glen SpeedTour festivities.
The historic 3.4-mile, 11-turn circuit at Watkins Glen International plays host to the 10th round on the 12-race calendar for Trans Am competitors, and the Silver Hare Racing camp is focused on delivering its best showing of 2022 during Saturday’s 30-lap, 75-minute TA2-class race. After this weekend, only the Oct. 8 race at the High Point, North Carolina-based team’s home track of Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in Alton, and the Nov. 6 race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, remain on the schedule.
Hull, who co-owns the team with his wife Laura, returns to Watkins Glen in the No. 57 Waukegan Farms/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro he drove to finishes of 17th and 18th, respectively, during a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader weekend at the track last September. The three-time TA2 Masters champion will be making his fifth start of the year. He was this season’s top Masters finisher twice in his previous four events – March 26 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, and July 3 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. In last year’s Watkins Glen doubleheader, Hull was part of a three-car Silver Hare Racing effort that was highlighted by Tyler Kicera’s runner-up finish in the Sunday race.
Zilisch, the 16-year-old from Mooresville, North Carolina, will be paying his second visit of the season to the iconic Watkins Glen circuit this weekend. A fulltime competitor in the prestigious Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup Series, which had a doubleheader weekend of its own at The Glen June 24-25, Zilisch showed his penchant for getting up to speed quickly by qualifying on the pole for the first race. An unfortunate turn of events brought an early end to his victory bid in that race, but it set the stage for a stellar rally from the back of the 28-car field in the second race that netted a sixth-place finish.
Zilisch has been busy since that outing. The same weekend he drove to a sixth-place finish in his Silver Hare Racing Camaro July 3 at Road America, Zilisch drove to victory in both the Saturday and Sunday MX-5 Cup rounds at the track. And his MX-5 Cup hot streak continued Aug. 27-28 at VIR when he finished second in the Saturday race and won for the third time in four races on Sunday.
It’s the kind of speed Zilisch has exhibited in Trans Am since his series debut last October at VIR, where he became the youngest pole winner in series history with a lap of 1:48.905. In this year’s Round 2 on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval in just his third-ever Trans Am outing, Zilisch laid down the fastest practice and qualifying laps, as well as the fastest lap of the race.
Silver Hare Racing leverages its Trans Am effort to promote its arrive-and-drive program, where aspiring racers and even tenured professionals hone their road-racing skills on some of the most revered tracks in North America. NASCAR Cup Series drivers Daniel Suárez, Christopher Bell, William Byron and Harrison Burton have all wheeled Silver Hare Racing-prepared cars to burnish their road-racing abilities in top-flight equipment.
The team offers six, professionally built and maintained TA2 chassis from Howe Racing for both competition and private testing. Silver Hare Racing has a dedicated, fulltime crew and operates out of a state-of-the-art facility in High Point. At the track, two 53-foot Featherlite transporters serve as the team’s base, each outfitted with a lounge and smart TVs for data and video review, as well as for hospitality.
“With NASCAR having so many more road-course races, it’s our goal for Silver Hare Racing to be the preferred team for drivers to get that road-course experience,” said Laura Hull, Silver Hare Racing co-owner and team manager. “We want to be that important step in the ladder for the young, up-and-coming drivers like Connor, which we’re doing in collaboration with Kevin Harvick Incorporated.
“It started when they brought him to us for testing at VIR a year ago, and now we’re delighted to have him under contract. That’s how we’re trying to position this. We want people to know we have an arrive-and-drive program, where people who want to run this track or another, we provide the opportunity for them to do that and be successful.”
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Maurice Hull, owner/driver, No. 57 Waukegan Farms/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro: |
Connor Zilisch, driver, No. 5 Silver Hare Racing/KHI Management Chevrolet Camaro: |
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