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William Sawalich Breaks Through For First Win At Rockingham Speedway At 19-Years-Old

by Hunter Thomas April 4, 2026 0 comments

ROCKINGHAM, NC – At 19-years-old, William Sawalich held off the field to earn his first-career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win in the North Carolina Education Lottery 250 Presented by Black’s Tire at Rockingham Speedway on Saturday.

Sawalich, driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Soundgear Toyota started the race in 14^th, but he continued to move up through the pack with each stage. He finished fifth in Stage 1 and second in Stage 2. In the closing laps of Saturday’s race, Sawalich led the final 79 laps en route to his first series win in 42 starts. The win also marks his first top-five of the 2026 season.

“It means everything,” Sawalich said. “Honestly, tough year last year and tough start to the year this year. These boys mean everything to me. They were here with me through everything and my family. Gosh, it feels good to get it done here in Rockingham, in front of an awesome crowd. Thank you to everyone for coming out. Our SoundGear GR Supra was on rails today. Good in stage one and stage two, and obviously amazing in clean air.” 

His teammate, Brandon Jones finished runner-up in the No. 20 Menards/Pelonis Toyota. The run is only his second top-five finish of the season; however, he also ran up front all day long as well.

“What a hard fought battle today,” Jones said. “I want to thank Menards and Pelonis for being our GR Supra today. It has been cool to get them a couple of really good runs here the last few weeks. I left Martinsville a little frustrated at myself last week. 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.”

Joe Gibbs Racing put an end to JR Motorsports’ win streak of five consecutive races. Allgaier, who has won the last three races this season finished third, followed by his teammates Rajah Caruth and Carson Kvapil.

Rounding out the top-10 was Sheldon Creed, Taylor Gray, Parker Retzlaff, Ryan Sieg, and polesitter Corey Day.

Day had a dominate car for the majority of the day. He swept Stages 1 and 2, and he led a race high of 118 laps. There were eight lead changes among six drivers.

The caution flew seven times for 44 laps.

Allgaier continues to lead the standings. He has 126 points over Jesse Love.

The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will visit Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, April 11 for the Suburban Propane 300. Live coverage will broadcast on the CW Network at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com