Now that he knows what it's like to fly an Impala without wings, Bob Williams just wants to keep all four wheels of his race car stuck to the track.
If he can do that tonight at PGARA Speedway , Williams will have a much better shot at winning the ARCA OK Tire Sportsman Series Mr. Quick Lube and Oil 100.
Six weeks ago at the season-opening race in Vernon, Williams got one lap into the heat race when he met with disaster. As he tried to pass two cars for the lead on the high side of the track at Vernon Speedway, Dave Wilson of Vancouver cut a tire and lost control, and his car shot up directly into the path of Williams' Rain-X-sponsored 2011 Chevy Impala. At the time, he was just heading into a turn after a long stretch of pavement on the high-banked oval track and he literally drove over Wilson's car and got airborne as his car launched into the wall.
"Vernon is a place where there are very few crashes but it's a place where you don't want any crashes because it's such high speed [130-140 miles per hour in the straight sections]," Williams said. "When crashes happen there, they're big.
"It happened so fast, it's like a car crash on the highway, you don't get a chance to be scared. What made it so bad was I was pretty much in the air until I hit the wall."
The impact destroyed the body, broke the clips and other parts of the suspension, damaged the motor and snapped the steering box. It was a mess, and Williams and his crew of Richard Sitowski, Pat McCarville and Dave Dyck were left to pick up the pieces
Williams had to lean on sponsors, Norway Signs and Autopro Collision to get the body work and decalling on the car ready in time for tonight's race.
"The sad part is all the work it took to get the car back together," he said. "We used the roll cage and the interior tin work and repaired the motor, and that's about it. We're pretty lucky to have our sponsors. When we wreck a car like that they basically have to do a second car for us. It's quite a bit of work."
After four consecutive second-place finishes in the season point standings dating back to 2007 when the series was under the WESCAR umbrella, Williams was hoping to finally wear the late-model sportsman series crown he last held in 2006. Now he knows, after missing the Williams Lake race, that even finishing second overall is a longshot.
Williams got off to similar start in 2010 when his car suffered a major wreck in the first race.
"Last year, that's what kept us from winning the championship and we almost battled back," he said. "This year, that pretty much took us out of the running right off the bat, and it was the kind of accident that you couldn't be mad at anybody."
Ian Graham of Harrison Hot Springs has won both main events so far in the series. Two weeks ago in Williams Lake, he beat hometown boy Ryley Seibert in a close race, with Dave Olson of Quesnel finishing third.
Graham, with 131 points, has a 19-point lead over Seibert atop the standings. Olson ranks fifth with 76. The series has attracted drivers from the Okanagan, Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
Williams is the only Prince George driver who has raced in ARCA this year but he could have some company tonight, with Mark Jewell and Sheldon Mayert both expected to enter. Also expected to show up for the first time this season are Garry McCarthy of Terrace and Chris Babcock of Fort St. John.
"I think it's going to be a great race," said Williams, who ranks 21st out of 22 drivers. "We're coming back to show these guys that we're one of the strong cars. Our goal is to get into the top 10, and we're a long ways back."
Time trials start at 6 p.m. and racing gets underway at 7.
