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William Sawalich gets improbable ARCA West win with late contact in overtime

Originally posted on 5 GOATs | By Jonathan Howard | Last updated Jul 11, 2025 11:07 PM ET

Perhaps the best finish you will see all year in ARCA! William Sawalich dominates the race and fights to seal the deal. This was a slugfest in overtime. ARCA rules call for only a single lap of overtime, and this one got ugly.

William Sawalich was in the lead all day long. He led every lap, in fact. With an overtime restart to settle things, Alon Day used Sawalich up in Turn 2 on the restart and sent him to the dirt.

Sawalich fell back to fourth place. Christian Eckes and Along Day fought tooth and nail. It looked like Eckes had stolen the race from Sawalich. Highway robbery! Then in Turn 11, the 18 car sent it DEEP.

He moved Day up the track, put the bumper to Eckes. From there, Sawalich got alongside Eckes, and the two traded paint. The 18 Toyota Camry got into the wall, it was a drag race to the line! What a finish. Is this what turns around the 2025 season for Sawalich?

CHAOS TO CHECKERS! @WilliamSawalich hangs on to win the #GeneralTire200 at @RaceSonoma!

@FloRacing & NASCAR Channel pic.twitter.com/vNYWgQv23v
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) July 12, 2025

“Yeah, I mean, that was definitely our race,” Sawalich said after the race. “It sucks it had to happen that way but you know, we did what we could to get our Starkey Camry in Victory Lane. So, glad we’re here. Took me a while to figure out how to do a burnout again.”

When asked about the finish, Sawalich was unsure what happened. Here is what he had to say:

“Yeah, I don’t really know what happened in [Turn 1],” the driver continued. “I don’t know if I overshot it or, I’m pretty sure I got ran into. Yeah, I think so. But I mean, it is what it is, it was a good race. Good race to the 25 [Alon Day] and everybody else.”

Between ARCA, Truck, and Xfinity Series races this season, William Sawalich has almost reached 30 races this season. This is his first race win of the year. He has had a few close calls and heartbreaks in his ARCA starts this season.

Most importantly, this could get him going in the Xfinity Series. Driving the No. 18 for JGR in the second tier of NASCAR, Sawalich has not been as good as his rookie counterparts. Last season, everyone talked about Sawalich vs. Connor Zilisch. However, this season, the two haven’t been mentioned in the same breath but a few times.

So, this could be the turning point. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow in the Xfinity Series race, and then after that. With no top-five finishes in Xfinity this year, William Sawalich could use a great run in his full-time gig tomorrow.

This article first appeared on 5 GOATs and was syndicated with permission.

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