CALERA, Okla. – A race season that saw its shares of ups and downs ended on the upside for William Gould.
Gould earned the Razor Chassis South Central Region crown, along with the 100th feature win of his IMCA Modified career in 2017.
He had 19 feature wins in all and finished sixth in the national points race with the track title at Grayson County Speedway and Allstar Performance Texas State crown to his credit as well.
“We had the occasional snafu here and there but overall, it was a pretty good season,” summed up Gould, from Calera, Okla. “There was a time during the year when we kind of fell off the pace or seemed to be lacking in the traction department after switching back to an open power plant. Jay Neal at BSB helped get us back on track and we went right back to winning.”
The 2013 national champion and now three-time regional king hadn’t planned to do much racing, let alone winning, early in the season. Gould’s intentions were to crew for friend and defending regional champ Matt Guillaume during the season-opening special at Abilene Speedway in February.
“A couple days before we were set to leave for the Ice Breaker, Matt gave me an engine to run and we ended up with back to back wins that weekend,” explained Gould. “That started off our season and it just snowballed from there.”
“I can’t say enough good things about the Guillaume family. We’ve got a couple others who seem to go above and beyond as friends and sponsors, Bubba Ables and Larry Adams,” he added. “Each of these guys race themselves but yet still supported our efforts as if we were driving for them. People use the term Racing Family loosely but that is exactly what we have and we couldn’t do it without each and every one of them.”
Gould tallied wins at six different venues, capturing eight checkers at Bells. His four Heart O’ Texas Speedway victories included his career 100th win, on March 17.
“That was definitely one of the highlights of our season and our career,” he said. “It’s an honor to be part of such a small group of drivers who have won 100 IMCA features.”
He’ll switch gears in 2018 and start a new career in the IMCA Sunoco Stock Car division.
Starts-59
Wins-19
Additional Top Fives-23
HIS CREW: Wife Dana, son David and daughter Daisy.
HIS SPONSORS: Parents David and Debbie Gould; Michael and Vanessa Hanjak, Carey Menasco, Ken Essenburg, Dino Rendon, Donnie Duffer and Chuck Vess; Champs Graphics and Screen Printing of Elk City; Smiley’s Racing Products of Mesquite, Texas; Dirt Defender of Red Oak; TSK Designs of Sherman, Texas; Southwest Speed of Fort Smith, Ark.; Speed Shift TV; VP Race Fuels, Stay Wet Track Chemicals and Matt Gibson; Z4 Products of Ames, Iowa; and Fast Shafts of Des Moines, Iowa.