William Sawalich was perfect in ARCA Menards Series West competition at Sonoma Raceway on Friday, July 11. He posted the fastest lap during the practice session, he scored the pole, and he led every lap en route to the victory.
Including the one-lap overtime lap when he got shoved off course by Alon Day, slid back to fourth, came back to battle for the lead, and won the race in a thrilling finish ahead of Christian Eckes and Day.
Sawalich, now a full-time driver in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, won for the first time in 2025. It’s his fourth career West victory and 24th across the three ARCA divisions.
“Yeah, that was definitely our race,” Sawalich told FloRacing post-race. “It sucks that it had to happen that way, but you know, we did what we could to get our Starkey Camry in victory lane. So glad we’re here; it took me a while to figure out how to do a burnout again.
“Yeah, I don’t really know what happened in [turn] 1. I don’t know if I overshot it or pretty sure I got ran into. Yeah, think so. But I mean it is what it is. It was a good race, good racing the No. 25 [Day] and everybody else.”
Eckes finished second, 0.066 seconds behind Sawalich, with Day in third, losing his bid for the win by 0.156 seconds.
Fourth place went to West points leader Trevor Huddleston followed by Tyler Reif in fifth.
Eric Nascimento, Corey Day, Kyle Keller, Tanner Reif and Jeff Anton completed the top 10 in sixth through 10th, respectively.
The race at Sonoma was an eventful one that saw three major incidents that took out frontrunners. Early in the race, Will Rodgers, who ran inside the top 10, dropped fluid out of his No. 88 Ford, thereby ending his race in 25th place.
Eleven laps later, Dale Quarterley lost control of his No. 32 and spun it into the wall, resulting in a disappointing 24th-place result.
The hardest crash of the race brought out the red flag. Eric Johnson Jr. spun Rodd Kneeland, who slammed driverside into the wall, and then collected Robbie Kennealy.
Both Kennealy and Kneeland were successfully released from the infield care center. However, they wound up with wrecked racecars and 21st and 22nd-place DNFs, respectively.
Sawalich stayed in the lead the whole time and led every lap, including the one-lap overtime finish after championship contender Kyle Keller’s No. 71 ran out of gas and brought out the final yellow flag.
Sawalich never wavered and the finish was one for the ages.
ARCA West Results from Sonoma
The series now has almost a month off before its next race which will be at Tri-City Raceway. The half-mile short track will host the West series on Saturday, Aug. 9 at 10:45 p.m. ET with live coverage provided by FloRacing.
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.