Josh Williams opens up about 7-week bout with pneumonia: ‘Felt like somebody was holding me underwater’

This season, Josh Williams has been doing all he can just to make it into the top-20. For seven weeks he’s battle pneumonia. Picking it up around the time of COTA earlier this season, it has been a tough road for the NASCAR Xfinity Series driver.

To Josh Williams’ credit, he has been doing better this season than he did last year. He is at least on-par with how he performed while healthy in his first year at Kaulig Racing.

Today at Rockingham, Williams wants to finally focus on his racing. Fighting illness for almost two months isn’t easy when you’re trying to race 200-300 miles each weekend.

The way Williams told it to Zach Sturniolo of NASCAR.com, COTA and Phoenix were fine. More or less. Then Las Vegas happened. After Stage 1, Ty Dillon had to jump in the No. 11 car and finish out the race.

“Dude, I literally felt like somebody was holding me underwater,” Williams told Sturniolo. “That was the longest 45 laps of my life.”

Being able to move on from this illness will be crucial. He is hoping to build a run that will either put him in the playoffs with points or with a win.

“I mean, we need to make the playoffs for sure. I think that’s achievable. We’re running out of time, but I think that’s achievable,” Williams explained.

Kaulig Racing is all about trophy hunting. Josh Williams knew that when he signed up for the job last year. After fighting for seven weeks just to breathe, Williams will be fully focused on running well each week.

Josh Williams qualifies P21 at Rockingham

So far, so good at Rockingham for Josh Williams. He was able to qualify P21 and put himself in the middle of the field. He will have opportunities to move up early or to fall back. Qualifying was a bit of a mixed bag with a few very fast drivers struggling to get speed out of their cars.

Williams qualified ahead of his teammate Daniel Dye and ahead of JR Motorsports rookie Carson Kvapil. With a brand new track for 99% of these drivers, there isn’t much that we can take away from this session.

Connor Zilisch won the pole, but he has to replace his right rear tires. That means he will drop to the rear to start the race today.