NASCAR News: William Sawalich gets breakthrough victory at Rockingham

William Sawalich scored his first career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday evening. Sawalich earned stage points in the first two stages, before a dominate performance in the final stage – leading 80 (of 250) laps.

He drove away from his teammate Brandon Jones on the final restart, and went unchallenged to the checkered flag, which Jones finishing in second. Sawalich and Jones gave Joe Gibbs Racing their first 1-2 sweep of the season, and for Jones, it is his second runn

The victory was the first in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for the 19-year-old Sawalich, the youngest driver to win at the 0.94-mile track in any of NASCAR’s top three series.

Sawalich, who led 80 laps, crossed the finish line 0.863 seconds ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Brandon Jones to end the five-race winning streak of JR Motorsports and preserve the series record of six straight victories for JGR.

“It means everything,” said Sawalich, who gained three positions to 11th in the series standings. “Honestly, it was a tough year last year and a tough start to the year this year. Gosh, it feels good to get it done here at Rockingham in front of an awesome crowd.

“Our Supra was on rails today, obviously. Good in Stage 1 (fifth), Stage 2 (second) and obviously amazing in clean air. Lapped traffic took me out last year (in a 25th-place finish), so that was running through my head a little bit, but, man, I just studied the race last year, calmed down—and everything’s fine.”

With the win, Sawalich earned eligibility for the first Dash 4 Cash race next Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway. The top four finishers at Rockingham—Sawalich, Jones and third- and fourth-place finishers Justin Allgaier and Rajah Caruth—will compete for a $100,000 bonus in that event, with the top finisher among them claiming the prize.

Caruth, in fact, made a spectacular three-wide pass of both Sheldon Creed and Carson Kvapil with nine laps left to grab the last Dash 4 Cash position. Kvapil finished fifth and Creed sixth, followed by Taylor Gray, Parker Retzlaff, Ryan Sieg and pole winner Corey Day.

For the first half of the race, Day appeared to have the dominant car. The 20-year-old led a race-high 118 of the 250 laps and swept the first two stages—the first stage wins of his career.

But Day lost five positions on a slow pit stop during the second stage break and never recovered. On Lap 174, he pitted out of sequence for a loose lug nut and charged from 24th over the final 70 laps to post his seventh straight top 10.

“We had a couple of bad pit stops,” Day said. “We got behind there, and it was hard to dig ourselves out of the hole.”

Jones was pleased with the progress his runner-up finish represents.

“I left Martinsville a little frustrated at myself last week (after finishing 18th),” Jones said. “We weren’t quite aggressive enough at times, so today, I was super adamant on being super aggressive. I am going to take all of the runs I can get. I’m going to put people in bad situations, if I can, and just move forward.

“I think we did a really good job of it. We kept fighting both sides of it with balance today. Sam (McAuley, crew chief) did a great job taking all of my feedback and making a car, I think, capable of winning. It was just a matter of trying to get some track position, and he (Sawalich) got such a big restart on that last restart (after the seventh caution on Lap 206) that it was hard to catch him.”

Allgaier had the consolation of leaving Rockingham with a lead of 126 points over second-place Jesse Love in the O’Reilly Auto Parts standings. Love hit the outside wall after a shove from Caruth, lost track position on a subsequent unscheduled pit stop on Lap 153 and finished 27th, two laps down.

Notes: Sawalich is the first Minnesota-born driver to win a race in any of NASCAR’s top three national series. … Caruth’s fourth-place finish in the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet was a career-best. He’ll be driving the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet at Bristol while Kyle Larson takes a turn in the No. 88 Camaro. … JR Motorsports put three drivers (Allgaier, Caruth and Kvapil) in the top 10, extending the organization’s streak of at least one driver in the top 10 to 65 races—second in the series all-time to Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing (79 straight top 10s).

NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Race Results

Average Speed of Race Winner:  98.878 mph.

Time of Race:  2 Hrs, 22 Mins, 36 Secs. Margin of Victory:  0.863 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  7 for 44 laps.

Lead Changes:  8 among 6 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   C. Day 1-50;T. Gray 51-56;C. Day 57-124;J. Allgaier 125;J. Love 126-129;W. Sawalich 130;J. Love 131-141;B. Crews # 142-171;W. Sawalich 172-250.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Corey Day 2 times for 118 laps; William Sawalich 2 times for 80 laps; Brent Crews # 1 time for 30 laps; Jesse Love 2 times for 15 laps; Taylor Gray 1 time for 6 laps; Justin Allgaier 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 17,54,20,7,18,2,8,19,88,99

Stage #2 Top Ten: 17,18,7,19,20,88,99,00,51,1

er-up finish in the last three races this season (Darlington).