Josh Williams Motorsports Suffers Heartbreak Again At Pocono

Josh Williams Motorsports Suffers Heartbreak Again At Pocono

Topics: Josh Williams, Pennsylvania ARCA 125

Josh Williams Motorsports Suffers Heartbreak Again At Pocono

Chris Knight
Knight Motorsports Management
Josh Williams Motorsports
August 6, 2012

LONG POND, Pennsylvania (August 6, 2012) - - After finishing 10th just eight weeks ago at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, Josh Williams (@Josh02Williams) and his Josh Williams Motorsports (JWM) team were optimistic about their chances for a similar run in this past Saturday’s Pennsylvania ARCA 125 despite bringing a brand new No. 02 Southwest Florida Cable Construction Ford Fusion to the track known as “The Tricky Triangle.”

Unfortunately, on his Birthday weekend where Williams turned 19 on Friday, August 3, the team’s hopes of landing their fourth top-10 finish of the year were dashed in the early stages of the 50-lap shootout.

A respectable 17th in practice topped off with an impressive 15th place qualifying run for a family-owned team running on a skeleton budget, the team’s morale was riding high for the 14th race of the year.

Shortly after taking the green flag on Saturday afternoon, trouble struck the Concord, North Carolina-based team as on lap three while racing in a wad of cars inside the top-15, Williams keyed the microphone that he had no fuel pressure and had to come to pit road.

Dropping off the track in turn three, Williams coasted to pit lane where his team raised the hood on the No. 02 Southwest Florida Cable Construction Ford Fusion analyzed the situation and sent their driver back into competition.

Though a lap down to the competition, Williams would return to the racetrack gunning for every position available. The first and only caution of the day waived on lap seven when Michael Levine spun in turn one. The team elected to keep their driver on the race track restarting the race in the 31st position on lap 12 and the first car eligible for the “Lucky Dog”

With Williams posting respectable lap times, the team was prepared to ride the Pennsylvania ARCA 125 out and hope through attrition and competition that they would be able to battle back and salvage a decent finish.

Trouble would strike again for the Port Charlotte, Florida native as near the 25-lap mark, Williams reported the same issue again to his team forcing the teenager to duck off the 2.5-mile triangle and once again bring his blue oval to the attention of his team.

Quick but efficient work by the JWM team would return the Floridian to the racetrack but several laps down to the leaders. For the rest of the sprint, Williams gallantly fought to rise through the leaderboard and when the checkered flag waived, the team was left to swallow a disappointing 21st place finish.

“I swear – we have some of the worst luck,” Williams said. “We’re still not real sure what caused the fuel pressure issue. We’ll get the car unloaded back at the shop and dissect it in hopes of we can find the issue to make sure it never happens again. It’s a shame, because I felt we really had a pretty good racecar. Definitely worthy of a top-15 finish. This just has been the way our season has gone. Ups and downs. But, we’ll surge forward with our heads held high and look forward to getting back to some short track racing at Berlin Raceway.”

Before the start of the 14th race of the season, Williams was featured live on SPEED’s ARCA telecast as the Messina Rookie spotlight.

“That was pretty neat and when we found out about it on Friday, we were pretty pumped,” added Williams. “With no sponsorship, we can use any exposure we can get. I just wish we would have had a better finish to back-up the great things that Ray (Dunlap) said about our little team.”

Next up for the ARCA Racing Series is the Berlin ARCA 200 presented by Hantz at Berlin (Mich.) Raceway on Saturday, August 11. Williams and his posse will make their inaugural debut at the .4-mile paved oval in the Great Lakes States.

After 14 races, JWM has competed in 13 of them and unofficially occupies a respectable 13th in the championship standings. This season, the team has amounted three top-10 finishes including a season best of ninth at Salem (Ind.) Speedway and 10th at the treacherous Winchester (Ind.) Speedway. An 11th place qualifying run at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in June is the team’s best time trials effort to date thus far.

For more information on Josh Williams, his Josh Williams Motorsports team and sponsorship opportunities for the 2012 and 2013 seasons please connect to the team’s official website at Joshwracing.com.

Williams has joined the Twitter crave. Follow and connect with him @Josh02Williams.

PHOTO CAPTION: Josh Williams, driver of the No. 02 Southwest Florida Cable Construction Ford Fusion in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards for Josh Williams Motorsports (JWM).

TEAM COMMUNICATIONS CONTACT:

NAME: Chris Knight, Knight Motorsports Management
PHONE: 239.834.9797
EMAIL: chris@chrisknightpr.com