Josh Williams ready to put illness behind him in search of Xfinity playoff berth

It's been a long seven weeks, but Josh Williams is finally feeling better. Williams, driver of the No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, has been battling the lingering effects of pneumonia since March 1 at Circuit of The Americas. The past month and a half hasn't been easy -- and he's still getting winded just moving boxes around the house. But at long last, Williams is getting back to normal ahead of Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Rockingham Speedway (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). "I've never felt anything like this before, ever," Williams told NASCAR.com. MORE: Xfinity standings | Rockingham schedule The illness started in early March, just before the Xfinity Series' first road-course race of the year at COTA. Williams woke up "freezing cold" without a voice and knew it wasn't good, but he assumed it was some sort of flu he got while traveling. What began was one of the worst bouts of sickness he's ever faced. He trudged through the Austin road course for a 15th-place finish -- "wasn't terrible for me on a road course" -- but returned one week later to Phoenix Raceway still feeling dismal. "I went to the care center at Phoenix because I was having trouble breathing and stuff," Williams said. "I had, like, crackling fluid in my lungs, so I was in there for a pretty good while. I didn't feel bad -- I mean, I felt bad, but I didn't feel terrible. So I got an IV at Phoenix ... and they were like, 'Well, there's really nothing we can do for you.'" Williams went on to finish 12th that weekend for his best finish of 2025, but Las Vegas proved to be a different story. The Florida native soldiered through the first 45-lap stage of the March 15 event but needed to exit the car as soon as it came to an end. "Dude, I literally felt like somebody was holding me underwater," Williams said. "That was the longest 45 laps of my life." RELATED: Williams exits race at Vegas As Ty Dillon stepped in as his substitute, Williams climbed from the car, removed his helmet and took a seat atop the pit box to watch as Stage 2 got underway -- simply trying to catch his breath. And after his experience at the infield care center one week prior, he didn't see much use in heading back to the Vegas care center. "I knew they couldn't do anything for me because it was just like a breathing thing," Williams said. "It's not like I had carbon monoxide (poisoning). It's not like I was overheated and dehydrated. It was just a struggle to breathe in the car under lateral loads in the corners and things like that because it was compressing my chest, my body in the corners, and we already talked about at the infield care center weeks before that, there's really nothing we can do. You just kind of got to wait it out. "So the best thing for me was just fresh air, right? So that's why I sat on the pit box and just took a minute to sit there and breathe and get everything back." [caption id="attachment_467304" align="aligncenter" width="1300"]Zach Sturniolo | NASCAR Digital Media[/caption] While miserable, Vegas proved to be the lowest point for Williams competitively. Dillon was on standby for Williams again at Homestead-Miami Speedway the following week, but Williams mustered through the entire race and scored a 19th-place finish. The race track wasn't the only place Williams was suffering the effects of his illness, though. Since 2015, Williams has visited over 200 children's hospitals on the "Josh Williams Hospital Tour," wearing his firesuit to brighten the days of children and their families during difficult times, an endeavor for which Williams was recognized in 2022 as a finalist for the Comcast Community Champion of the Year Award. Because Williams has been sick, multiple visits were canceled over the past seven weeks. "It's been terrible," Williams said. "I mean, some of our greatest visits that we do (are out there), one of them being Vegas. And Phoenix, having guests out to the race track and going to tour some of these places -- we haven't been able to go. It just sucks, because that's what I'm used to. That's what we do, and that's what I enjoy doing." Williams is ready to put it all behind him now. His voice is still on its way back, he said, but the hospital tours are set to resume in two weeks when the circuit heads to Texas Motor Speedway. As he returns to feeling better, he's ready for improved results, too, because "it kind of hurt our season too," he said. The 31-year-old has finished inside the top 20 in all but two races this year -- 29th at Vegas when Dillon stepped in on short notice, and 36th at Darlington with a DNF after his car overheated. Those results are OK, Williams said, but the goal is much more than that. "I mean, we need to make the playoffs for sure. I think that's achievable," Williams said through a lingering cough. "We're running out of time, but I think that's achievable. You know, some of the tracks where I thought that we would really strive, like Bristol and Martinsville, we weren't as good as I thought we were going to be. But we've got some good tracks coming up that I enjoy up until the playoffs. So I think that that's really our main goal is just to get the 11 into the playoffs, and then if we can achieve that goal, then we'll worry about staying in the playoffs." MORE: 2025 Xfinity schedule This season marks Williams' second with Kaulig Racing but eighth running the majority of the races of the Xfinity schedule. His average finish of 19.7 in 2025 is already two spots better than he finished in 2024 (21.7) and his average start has improved from 23.5 to 19.6. "I think it's been OK," Williams assessed of his 14 months so far with Kaulig. "It's just one of those deals, like we do have some good runs, and then sometimes we have things happen out of our control, but I think we're moving still in the right direction. I just don't know if we've moved fast enough." Crew chief Eddie Pardue is back on the pit box for Williams this year after replacing Kevin Walter just past the midpoint of the 2024 campaign. Williams said he believes they're "on the right track" but ultimately needed to set up Williams' cars more optimally for his driving preferences. "I've always drove off of the right-rear (tire), so everything for me is on-the-throttle kind of driving," Williams said. "So I've struggled with the cars being a little bit tight for me, just because the style of driving that I have. ... "We're gaining on it. I just wish we'd gain on it a little faster."