This victory for P.J. Williams meant a little bit more. Wearing the suit of his late mentor, Chris Coyle, he won last Friday’s 600 sprint event at Spirit Auto Center Speedway in New Jersey.
Coyle, who passed away at age 47 on April 9, was an accomplished 360 and 410 sprint car driver. Williams and Coyle both hail from the same town, Wilmington, Delaware.
“We would have two- or three-hour conversations after the races at Airport Speedway [in New Castle, Delaware,] when he showed up for one of our 600 events,” Williams said. “I would ask Chris how I could be a better driver. We talked about everything, from setup to the psychology of driving. Topics would begin on how to adjust stagger and then would jump to how and when to make a calculated pass. He taught me to be smooth, not to overdrive, and how and when to make adjustments from inside the car.”
During the winter, while competing in the Indoor Auto Racing Championship, Williams was in a fire, which scorched his fire suit. Coyle loaned Williams his fire suit to wear.
“We were about the same size,” said Williams. “With the full fire-retardant underwear that I wear, the suit fit right.”
When the news of Coyle’s unexpected death came out, it hit Williams hard. He met Coyle’s uncle Teddy Fitzsimmons and cousin Kate Fitzsimmons at the funeral. A few weeks later, he saw them at Airport Speedway.
“They told me it would mean a lot to them if I wore Chris’s suit,” Williams said. “So, I did so in April and May, listening to ‘Give Heaven Some Hell’ by Hardy and trying for a win while wearing Chris’s fire suit.”
That win came last Friday night for P.J. Williams.
“It meant the world to me to win in Chris’s suit, and it meant even more to his family,” said Williams. “I was happy, proud, and sad all at once in victory lane.”
Williams said now he can retire his old friend’s fire suit.
“I’m going to have the suit framed, with a picture of me wearing it in victory lane inside the frame,” Williams said. “I’ll give it to his family.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
