Josh Williams, an underdog racer for DGM Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, had another incredible race Saturday night in the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway as he finished a career-best sixth.
Following the race, NBC’s Parker Kligerman caught Williams, 27, soaking in the moment while drenched in emotion.
Caught this moment @Josh6williams was having after finishing 6th tonight.
Excellent finish for that team pic.twitter.com/z7g0oh9BzV
— Parker Kligerman (@pkligerman) October 18, 2020
After seeing Kligerman’s Tweet and photo, Williams responded by tweeting, “Thank you for this @pkligerman a lot of emotion right here not many people understand.”
It was an emotional moment, and Williams is right, a lot of people don’t understand.
Coming into 2020, Williams had only scored one top-10 finish in 61-career NXS starts. In contrast, this season, he has five already and there’s still three races remaining to add to the total.
His top-10 finishes have come at five different tracks, as well.
The places where Williams has scored top-10s in 2020 are: Fontana (10th), Bristol (9th), Daytona (9th), Talladega (9th) and Kansas (6th).
If you’re keeping score, that’s a 2-mile oval, a short track, two superspeedways, and a 1.5-mile intermediate.
Incredibly, Williams and his little team that could sit 16th in the championship standings.
Casual fans of NASCAR don’t understand the difference between the haves and the have nots within the three National Series ranks, but I assure you that what Williams has accomplished in 2020 is insanely impressive.
While teams like Stewart-Haas Racing, JR Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and others have seemingly endless resources of which to pull from to gain speed in their NASCAR Xfinity Series programs, teams like DGM Racing are faced with hard decisions each and every week.
Decisions like, do we have enough sponsorship to cover tire costs?
If they do, or are willing to break their own bank, then they bolt on fresh tires all race long. If not, they are relegated to used tires all race long, which come with a much slower speed on the track.
They don’t have hundreds of employees. They don’t have engines that crank out the highest horsepower numbers in the garage.
However, what guys like Williams lack in the resource department, they more than make up for in heart and sheer determination. If you don’t know who this driver, who hails from Florida is yet, go ahead and write his name down. He has the skill and the persistence to make it to the upper echelon of NASCAR someday.
