To know NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Josh Williams is to like him.
A lot.
In the time he’s spent as a full-time competitor at the Xfinity level, Williams has become an incredibly popular figure, both among fans and within the garage area.
Not only has Williams demonstrated that he’s a talented racecar driver, doing more with less in ARCA and then again in Xfinity, but he has also charmed most everyone in the industry by being friendly, open and unapologetically himself.
Those qualities and more earned him scores of supporters well before he earned his chance at Kaulig Racing, and it’s why there were so many who hoped it would be an opportunity that could make Williams a winner and a playoff contender.
Unfortunately, not all things in NASCAR work out the way people want them to.
A reminder of that came Wednesday when Kaulig Racing announced that Williams had been released as the driver of their No. 11 Chevrolet effective immediately. The team will use multiple drivers in the No. 11 the remainder of the season, starting with Carson Hocevar this weekend at Iowa Speedway.
It was news that was hard to hear, but not hard to understand.
Kaulig’s Xfinity program has underperformed relative to expectations over the last several seasons, and Williams has not been able to overcome those circumstances.
He had just six top-10 finishes in a year and a half at Kaulig — compared to 2020, when he had a career-best six top 10s in one year driving for DGM Racing — and currently sits 19th in points, lowest of Kaulig’s three drivers.
Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Williams indicated that there were no hard feelings, acknowledging the reality that his chance to race for Kaulig did not go as planned.
“Sometimes things work, and sometimes things don’t,” Williams said. “We were in that situation where things don’t, but I really like those guys over there and I’m super grateful for the opportunity.”
Had Williams latched on at Kaulig earlier (say, when the team was at its best in 2022) things may have gone much differently.
But sometimes, a driver who showcases his talents in lesser equipment and convinces people he could excel if he got the chance to drive for a larger team gets the right opportunity at the wrong time — and there’s plenty of examples of that.
Long-time independent driver Jimmy Means got the opportunity of a lifetime to race for Hendrick Motorsports subbing for Tim Richmond in 1987, only for that great golden chance to end when he was swept up in a multi-car crash not of his making.
David Stremme earned a full-time ride with Team Penske after a successful career reset in the Xfinity Series in 2008, but suffered during a down year for Penske as a whole before being quickly tossed aside when Brad Keselowski became available.
Even today, what was thought to be Ryan Preece‘s big break in Cup at Stewart-Haas Racing turned into another valley to traverse, as his performance suffered under the weight of the organization’s demise.
At RFK Racing, Preece has now been able to show that his forgettable tenure at SHR was a matter of joining the team at the wrong moment in time, and not because he couldn’t get it done with a top team. We’ll see now if Williams gets that opportunity, as he said he was looking forward to the future and that “they can’t get rid of me yet” in the garage area.
“This is motorsports and then things change a lot,” Williams said. “I think motorsports is one of the toughest sports. I mean, there’s not a lot of rides available and it’s super hard to stay in this business. It’s just unfortunate right here at the end of the year, but you’ll still see me. I ain’t going anywhere.”
Anyone who has gotten the opportunity to be around Williams, whether in the garage, on pit road or anywhere else around the racetrack, should hope so. With as popular as Williams is and the amount of support he has within the industry, it’s hard to envision him not getting another opportunity in short order.
The exact quality of that opportunity remains to be seen, but it’s hard not to hold out hope that he will eventually get another chance with a multi-car organization and for things to work out better than they did over the last year and a half.
It’s also hard not to hope that Wednesday’s move works out best for everyone involved.
As a team that built itself up from a single-car team into a multi-car, multi-series organization, Kaulig has brought a lot to the Xfinity Series grid when they have been at their best as a race team. The value of Kaulig’s success and how it brings out the best in their team and its cast of characters was illustrated over the past month in the Cup Series, where Ty Dillon‘s improbable run to the final round of the in-season challenge became an unexpected delight to follow in the middle of the season.
Personality-wise, a big part of the appeal of Kaulig’s hire of Williams was that he seemed to be a perfect fit for their organization and culture. Performance aside, he still may very well have been. And that’s why within the industry, there is surely a lot of hope that Williams lands on his feet quickly and that his results at Kaulig aren’t held against him in the future.
After all, it was such a happy thing when Williams’ perseverance paid off and he got called up to drive for one of the big teams of his level. Sadly, it ended up being a reminder that not all such stories have happy endings.
