WILLIAMS TAKES WEST COAST PRO TRUCK SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP AT THE I 10 IN BLYTHE.

Source: Dave Grayson
Date: 11/27/2006

When the West Coast Pro Truck Series, WCPTS, rolled into the pit area of the Lucas Oil I 10 Speedway in Blythe-California all eyes were on Newbury Park's Jeff Williams. The series was in Blythe to wrap up their 2006 season with a 50 lap feature, on the quarter mile paved oval, and Williams was on the brink of capping off a great season by winning the series championship.

But the process was not going to be an easy one for Williams. In fact, just getting the WCPTS feature officially started turned out to be a chore that required three efforts.

Rick Wall and Williams paced the starting field of trucks under the initial green flag but the green quickly turned to yellow when Val Cummings did a 360 spin in turn two before the first lap was completed. That forced a restart and the field lined up again in a two by two order.

On the ensuing restart, Wall's truck went to the high line of turn three but Wall didn't realize that he had not completely cleared Williams' truck. There was contact made that wadded up the field. The contact also snapped the hood pins on the Williams truck. On the following restart the air pressure slammed the hood into his windshield and brought out the next yellow. That forced the series points leader into the pits to have his hood removed and now the pressure for the championship was on.

Series officials decided the next effort to officially start the race would be better served with a single file line. Because Williams had to go to the pits for repairs he had to restart the race shotgun on the field and his work was now cut out for him.

With the race now officially underway, Wall jumped into the lead and appeared to be the truck to beat. But, as expected, Williams was coming on strong and fast. Within a handfull of laps he worked his way from 13th to fifth. He took fourth two laps later and only needed two additional laps to move into third.

Much to everyone's suprise, Wall's race winning effort went up in smoke on lap 11 when his engine expired on the backstretch. The yellow caution flag, for the track clean up, placed Williams in second and right on the rear bumper of new race leader Ronnie Davis Jr.

With the race back under green again, and with a ton of momentum coming off of turn two, Williams made quick work of taking the lead for good and, to coin an old racing term, just literally checked out of the hotel and left everyone behind. His race rhythm was only slowed once for a lap 20 caution flag when the truck of Jim Nowecky hit the front stretch wall.

Following the final restart of the race, Williams again showed his dominance and just ran away with the remainder of the event. Davis finished second while Jim Satterfield, Tim McMillin and Michael Kelperis completed the top five.

After the race the happy winner, and new WCPTS champion, said "it's been a tremendous year. We finished every race in the top five, we had a lot of poles and trophy dash wins and it's just been great. The last six races has just been incredible. During the last four of them we had to go to the back of the pack for some reason. Sometimes someone spun us out or we had a problem with the truck but we came back to the front in every one of these races and finished everyone of them in the top five and that's just awesome."

Commenting on the lap one contact that sent his truck to the rear of the field Williams said "On that restart I guess they, (the officials), didn't like the way the 10, (Wall), took off too soon or something but we didn't get a caution until we were approaching turn four. I got underneath the 10 coming into three and four and he just shot down and went across my nose and it sheared off my hood pins. We slowed down after that and, when we got going on the next restart, on the backstretch the hood just flew up in my face. I just said oh no and did everything I could to keep the truck straight and away from the wall while worrying about someone hitting me from behind. Luckily the caution came out, I came in and the crew pulled my hood off. I restarted in the back and we made it all the way to the front again and won this thing."

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