Josh Williams, One Of The Nascar Xfinity Series’ Leading Underdogs, Is An Old-School Racer

Josh Williams will not give up on his dream to be Nascar’s top old-school racer. The Floridian is sporting a mullet and a goatee that makes him look like a 20th century racecar driver, but he’s really just a 29-year-old hungry to race.

“I call them helmet holders, seat warmers or steering wheel holders,” Williams said of old-school drivers. “There’s not a lot of guys left who can build a car from the ground up, that can pull it down, that can set the bump steering and there’s not a lot of guys like that.

“I want to be the old school guy that brings it back. That’s my goal. To see people recognize it and label me as an old school guy, that’s what I’m looking for. That’s how I am, how I’ve always been and I’m not going to change.”

Williams believed he’d have a breakthrough 2022 season when he joined BJ McLeod Motorsports in the Nascar Xfinity Series. The move enabled him to make his Cup Series debut for the team McLeod co-owns with Matt Tifft, Live Fast Motorsports, at the Bristol dirt track with a 25th-place finish.

However, he failed to qualify for three of the first eight events of the year, a major blow to a driver with limited funding. McLeod eventually maneuvered Wiliams’ owner points to solidify his spot in races going forward and he stayed with the team through the first 23 events. He ended up going back to the Mario Gosselin-run DGM Racing, an organization he’s spent the majority of his young career with. In 2020, Williams scored six top 10s with DGM and finished 15th in the championship standings.

“In this day and age, it’s so hard because the Xfinity Series is flooded with quite a bit of funding,” Williams said. “It’s a difficult situation because, even if you do have the funding, somebody’s beat you to it. We’re building our brand and growing our partners.

“I think we’re going to focus next year on having better equipment. We need to be more prepared and bring really good cars to the racetrack. We gave it 100% effort at Phoenix and we drove inside of the top 10, but had a bad pitstop at the end and ended up 15th. That’s a really good day for us, and you’ll see more of that out of us next year.”

Williams ended the year on a strong note with a 15th-place finish at Phoenix. He also ran two more Cup Series events for Live Fast Motorsports. He earned another 25th-place finish at the Indianapolis road course and finished 31st at the Charlotte Roval.

While Williams could take his limited funding to a larger team to run fewer races but in top-tier equipment, he’s focused on growing with the opportunities he currently has.

The year of learning, he explained, is one he wants to forget.

“I would say it was a great learning experience,” Williams said of 2022. “I learned a lot of things about myself. You have to put it into perspective that everybody’s got good years and everybody’s got bad years. I’m going to mark this one up as a rough one and forget about it. I’m focusing on next year and really try to come out strong, run up towards the front and have some successful finishes.”

One bright side to Williams’ year, however, is that he’s been nominated for the Comcast Community Champion of the Year for his years of giving back to children. He’s visited over 150 hospitals in person and on Zoom during the pandemic. Through these visits, he’s met with countless children, as well as their families, to show his support.

As Williams’ work with children started to expand, he enlisted the help of OhmniLabs to use their Telepresence robots, providing an opportunity for some children to virtually experience at-track garage tours from their hospital beds. This year, he formed a relationship with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, which builds closed circuit TV and radio studios in children’s hospitals throughout the country to increase experiences for patients who can’t make the trip out to the track.

“I’ll probably cry a bit,” Williams said if he wins the honor, which will be announced at the end of November. “I’m a softy. It’s super special, not just for me but for the Seacrest Foundation. We’ve been able to work together and visit all of these places. To give back to them on a higher level, that’s amazing.”

As Williams focuses on his future, the goal is showcase his talent and get back to his 2020 numbers. He’s using the work ethic he’s had since his days in the ARCA Menards Series, when he competed and worked on cars for his family-owned team.

Even though Williams has moved up through the rankings, one thing hasn’t changed and that’s his eagerness to work on his own cars. He hasn’t announced his plans for 2023, but expect him to return to the Xfinity Series.