William Sawalich rocketed around the 1.99-mile Sonoma Raceway road course with excellence, scoring a third-place finish. (Photo Credit: Aaron Brink | The Podium Finish)
SONOMA, Calif. — William Sawalich proved to the NASCAR Xfinity Series field that he isn’t quite done yet putting up solid finishes amid the disastrous season the team has had, as the two-time ARCA Menards Series East champion scored a career-best third-place finish in Saturday’s Pit Boss/Food Maxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway.
The native of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, maintained sharpness and consistency after claiming victory in the ARCA Menards Series West race on Friday by just 0.066 seconds, as he went on to achieve his first career top 5 finish in the Xfinity Series.
In his 21 Xfinity Series starts leading up to the weekend, Sawalich has impressed the series with an average starting position of 11.5, along with two pole awards earned at Phoenix Raceway in 2024 and at Nashville Superspeedway this season. Although he achieved a fifth-place start at Sonoma, Saturday presented 79 laps filled with challenges, especially considering his career average finish of 24.3 and just seven top-15 finishes in those 21 races, which included a staggering seven finishes outside of the race (DNFs).
Sawalich played his cards right throughout the entirety of the afternoon, after he short-pit in both stages, the driver of the No. 18 Toyota Supra found himself restarting third behind by far the two strongest drivers in the field in the JR Motorsports duo of Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch, who both duked it out for the victory at the Chicago Street Course the week prior.
Sawalich stayed competitive for several laps, distinguishing himself as the only car able to challenge both van Gisbergen and Zilisch. By the closing laps of the event, those two had pulled ahead of the rest of the field by over 10 seconds.
William Sawalich during driver introductions for the 2025 Pit Boss/ Food Maxx 250 at Sonoma Raceway. (Photo Credit: Cornnell Chu | The Podium Finish)
Sawalich gained four seconds on the rest of the field and finished third as the finish capped off a very successful weekend for the Xfinity Series rookie contender.
“It was a good day, we had the speed to run in third the whole day,” Sawalich stated about his race. “The front two (Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch) were in a league of their own, and we had the speed to run with them for 10 laps, but then after that, they started to slowly creep away.”
The finish marked his fourth top 10 finish of the season, with three of those results having come on two separate road courses, including Saturday’s showdown at Sonoma Raceway.
“Our (Joe Gibbs Racing) road course program has been great this year, and I can’t thank all the guys enough for all the preparations that go into setting up our race cars, not just each week, but also on road courses.”
Sawalich is currently ranked 23rd in the Xfinity Series point standings as the series nears the peak of its summer schedule. The 20th race of the season will take place next Saturday at “The Monster Mile,” Dover Motor Speedway, a venue where he has found success in the past during ARCA competition.
The Bet Rivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway will be broadcast live on The CW on July 19th at 4:30 p.m. ET, with radio coverage from the Performance Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on channel 90.
