LINCOLN, Ala. — Nearly three months ago, Josh Williams was fired from his NASCAR Xfinity Series ride with Kaulig Racing.
On Saturday (Oct. 18) evening, he left the racetrack fired up, nearly winning the United Rentals 250 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Williams lined up on the front row, alongside leader and eventual winner Austin Hill, for the race’s final restart. But the Alpha Prime Racing No. 45 car stumbled coming to the green flag, an empty gas tank leaving Williams dropping like a rock outside of the top 10.
With the race headed into overtime, it left much of the field short on fuel. For those who didn’t run out of gas or elected to pit during that yellow flag, it meant they had to save as much as they could before taking the green for the final time. Williams was among those doing that, and evidently, he saved too much.
“It just stumbled,” Williams told Frontstretch. “I did a bad job on my part. We had enough fuel, obviously, because we got back going there, but just a bad job on my part. I saved for so long, I didn’t let it run enough before we took the green.”
“Man, I hate it for these guys,” Williams added. “We drove up to the front. We stayed there all day and got the Alloy [Employer Services] eagle on the car, so that’s pretty cool to have a good run like that, have a good day.”
Still, Williams was able to get the car under power again and drove home to a 14th-place finish. It was his best result since a 15th at Sonoma Raceway in July and his best since losing his full-time job with Kaulig Racing. He also got a bonus point for posting the Xfinity Fastest Lap.
“You know, it’s not too bad for a guy who apparently got fired because he can’t drive, right?” Williams said.
Williams had driven for Kaulig since the start of the 2024 season, but the pairing had only produced six top 10s in 54 races together. Williams finished 18th in points last year and was 19th this year at the time of his release. For comparison, Williams posted six top 10s in the 2020 season alone and finished 15th in points driving for a much smaller team in DGM Racing.
Since the Kaulig split, Williams has run a partial schedule for DGM and Alpha Prime, but he’s looking to race even more next year.
“Yeah, I’ve got some things in the works, for sure, for next year — some options and things like that,” Williams said. “But I don’t know. I’ve been doing this a long time, man. We’ve had good runs before, so I don’t think it [this finish] really does anything for me. I mean, I know we can run up front. I know I can run up front and compete for wins and stuff like that.
“So hopefully, we get the right opportunity, and we’ll win one of these one of these days.”
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.