There’s the saying you’ll often hear of a second or third generation driver, that racing is in their blood.
William Sawalich doesn’t have racing in his blood line. Instead, it’s business and philanthropy. His grandfather is William Austin, who started the largest hearing aid manufacturer in the nation in Starkey Hearing Technologies. Sawalich’s father, Brandon, is the company president today, naturally explaining Starkey being a major sponsor in Sawalich’s career.
But on top of the hearing aid business, there’s the Starkey Hearing Foundation that’s worked to donate over a million hearing aids all over the world. It’s through his work with the organization that’s made Sawalich, 19 years old, probably the only driver in NASCAR history to say they met the Pope, met the President and went to Zambia.
His generosity, according to Corey Day, is not translated over to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
“He told me to go f–k myself,” Day said of the conversation the two had Saturday after a run in at Darlington Raceway that knocked Sawalich out for his second straight DNF.
It’s hard to blame Sawalich when you look at the replay of the lap 68 incident. Day sails it into Sawalich on a deep entry to turns 1 and 2, clips the rear quarter twice on exit and puts Sawalich in the wall. Was this intentional? Probably not. But it’s a callback to Day’s biggest struggle this season: car control.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver was able to skirt by despite early season run-ins with several drivers, including Sawalich as both drivers pointed out post-race. But not now, and not when all the pressure is on him.
Despite the damage to his car, Day rebounded to finish second and left Darlington fifth in The Chase standings, just 46 points behind the leader, Justin Allgaier. His two-spot jump in points was the biggest of the 12-car field. More performances like that, and a little luck, would thrust him into the championship conversation very quickly.
Then again, it now appears Sawalich will have a say on the matter.
“[Sawalich] threatened to wreck me and said, ‘we’ll see how the rest of your Chase goes,’” Day said. “I don’t doubt that he will wreck me or whatever the case is, where it obviously means a lot to me and nothing to him. If that happens, I really won’t be surprised at all.”
It’s a bit of a burn on Sawalich that these races mean “nothing” to Sawalich, who when asked how he could make Day’s life difficult without getting in trouble said his team was focused on next year’s program and just winning trophies. Ultimately, Day is in the area of having the right idea of the spot he’s in. Every week is life and death now for Day and his Chase competitors. To the other two dozen drivers who occupy the field every week? They’ve got nothing to lose.
And in there lies the balancing act of The Chase that’s made the playoffs, in whatever form or fashion the last two decades, a storyline catalyst. For Chase drivers, you have to keep tabs on how they’re getting along with everyone else, or else one of them could make winning the title even harder than it already is.
It’s September. The non-Chase teams all probably have a piece of them asking “why do we even bother showing up now?” The last thing you can do is give them a reason to retaliate, especially when frustrations are at their peak for no reason other than “we’ve been doing this for seven months, I’d like to be home.”
There’s countless examples of title contenders taken out in a bout of revenge: Jeff Gordon took out Clint Bowyer in 2012, Matt Kenseth finished Joey Logano’s title hopes in 2015 and Denny Hamlin’s chances were shot by a young Chase Elliott in 2017. These were Cup guys, some of them champions, who said, “to hell with it” and didn’t care about the consequences.
Some O’Reilly guys might think twice about payback depending on the position they’re at in their career. Sawalich, re-signed to come back to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2027, doesn’t need to. What would a week or two at home cost to him if it meant showing Day he wasn’t going to be pushed around?
I bet it wouldn’t weigh on Sawalich’s conscience much either. He’s done quite enough giving. Probably doesn’t feel the need to do so on track.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in Fort Wayne, Indiana covering minor league, college and high school sports. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.
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