Joe Gibbs Racing Signs Top Prospect For 2025 Season
What’s Happening? Joe Gibbs Racing finally filled out its 2025 Xfinity Series lineup. Monday afternoon, JGR officially announced that they signed…
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William Sawalich is Joe Gibbs Racing’s next top prospect. Monday afternoon, JGR awarded him a full-time ride with the team’s Xfinity Series program in 2025. But there is one lingering question about him: was he ready for this step?
What’s Happening? Joe Gibbs Racing finally filled out its 2025 Xfinity Series lineup. Monday afternoon, JGR officially announced that they signed…
William Sawalich is only 18 years old, but he has taken NASCAR’s developmental series by storm. With back-to-back ARCA Menards Series East Championships, he has caught the eye of those in the pits and the stands.
To some, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series was the logical next step for Sawalich, with the young driver making part-time starts with Tricon Garage in the past two seasons. However, on Monday afternoon, a few days before his Xfinity Series debut, JGR announced that Sawalich would join the series full-time in 2025.
Why the jump so soon? For some time now, Joe Gibbs Racing has taken this step with prospects they feel are going all the way. They made this move most recently with Ty Gibbs, which paid off with an Xfinity Series title in 2022 and Cup Series Rookie of the Year honors in 2023.
His skill in ARCA was enough to prove he has what it takes to Coach Gibbs and the rest of JGR. So why are some fans still so cautious about Sawalich?
@brakehard WILLIAM SAWALICH OFFFICIALLY JOINS JOE GIBBS RACING NASCAR XFINITY TEAM IN 2025 #nascar #racing #motorsport ♬ original sound – brakehard
Quality of equipment, despite NASCAR’s best efforts, still makes a major difference in any driver’s career. While William has dominated the ARCA Menards series, this has come in Joe Gibbs Racing equipment.
This raises the question of whether Sawalich is benefiting from his superior equipment or sheer driving skill. Sawalich rarely lost an ARCA race this year but struggled at other levels.
To Sawalich’s benefit, he ran consistently and brought the car home on the lead lap all but once in over 20 starts in all three ARCA Series. In the past, we have seen several drivers in good equipment perform not nearly as well as Sawalich this year.
What can the stats tell us about his development?
While Sawalich dominated ARCA this season, he, like any superstar, had his kryptonite. This came in the form of Trackhouse racing superstar Connor Zilisch, who’s emergence overshadowed Sawalich’s winning.
In six head-to-head ARCA Races this season, Zilisch won four while Sawalich won two. During those weeks, these two young hotshots clearly had the best cars on track.
When comparing the two who are making the same jump, one thing favors the Chevy driver, which is that Zilisch is already a winner in Xfinity. But in the ARCA East Series, while Zilisch continued to win the battles, Sawalich won the war and the Championship after Zilisch crashed out at Bristol.
So, if Sawlaich is jumping trucks, how did he race in a truck?
While Sawalich was winning in ARCA, he made part-time starts with Tricon Garage in the No. 1 Truck. Tricon is Toyota’s top team, and despite this, Sawlaich struggled for in-race consistency. William posted a strong average starting position of 11.7. Unfortunately, his average finish was 19th.
While the stats in the Truck Series don’t show success, they do, however, show a very young driver living and learning. Of course, there are outside factors that affect these statistics. But Sawalich has, time and time again, proven he can handle himself in any racecar.
What’s Happening? The NASCAR Rookie of the Year battle is one of the best storylines to watch across all three…
Lucky for us, we have many examples of drivers doing this, as “untraditional” routes to the top are becoming increasingly common. For instance, take Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar.
Hocevar, at just 21 years old, leaped over the Xfinity Series, making only five starts before going full-time in the Cup Series this year. Hocevar’s four-win Truck Series campaign last year has turned into a Cup Series season in which he is the clear-cut Rookie of the Year in a strong class.
What about someone who skipped just the Truck Series?
Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love had a similar route to Sawalich, and that has resulted in a Round of Eight appearance and a one-win campaign so far for the 19-year-old. Love is running away with Rookie of the Year, beating out SuperCars Champion and three-race winner Shane Van Gisbergen.
What about a fellow Toyota driver? Ty Gibbs took the same route as Sawalich, but there are a few differences.
Before winning the 2022 Xfinity Series championship, Gibbs, unlike Sawalich, started a half-season at the Xfinity Series before jumping to full-time competition. These two are on similar routes, but with this one note, those routes look a little different.
While this worked out for Gibbs, he has yet to win a Cup Series race but is slowly improving. Does this mean that Sawalich is on his way to Xfinity Series glory? Not necessarily, but it proves that good equipment doesn’t necessarily mean that the talent won’t transfer over.
When you put aside team names, equipment, and accolades, success in 2025 will be up to Sawalich. But will he be up for the challenge like he has so many times before?
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