As he fights for a NASCAR Xfinity title, Sam Mayer is 'way different ... way better.' Here's why.
Sam Mayer certainly doesn’t consider himself the favorite to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series title in his first appearance in the championship four.
He doesn’t consider himself an underdog either.
The 20-year-old from Franklin simply sees himself as someone who deserves his spot, who’ll put up the best fight he can this weekend and enjoy a ride that’s already been wilder than he could imagine.
“I’m a completely different race car driver than I was four months ago, eight months ago, at the start of the season,” Mayer said, sounding absolutely bubbly in a phone interview this week. “I’m a way different driver, a way different person. I’m way better.
“The confidence that I have in my restarts, my race line, my pit stops – everything – I just feel so much better about it. That’s going to directly correlate to how we perform.”
Mayer, completing his second full season in the series, will race against Justin Allgaier, his veteran JR Motorsports teammate; John Hunter Nemechek, who has won a season-high seven races this season; and Cole Custer, a two-time championship runner-up; with the title going to the highest finisher among them Saturday night at Phoenix Raceway.
All are looking for their first championship. Only Allgaier has won at Phoenix.
“We were really good there in the spring, we just didn’t finish well,” said Mayer, who placed 11th at the desert mile in March. “And it’s just because I lacked in a few areas throughout the race. I put us behind. The car was good. So I’m not worried about having a fast race car. But I’m going to go out there and do my part and we’re going to have a solid day out of it.”
Statistics point to Sam Mayer as the underdog of the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship four
History – long-term and short-term – paints a tricky picture for Mayer.
The least experienced of the championship four, he has the lowest average finish at Phoenix (20.0), lowest best finish (11th) and fewest laps led (four).
Through 32 races this season, Mayer is tied for second-most wins (four, with Allgaier) but otherwise is fourth in average finish (13.5), top-fives (12), top-10s (18) and laps led (177).
But that’s the interesting thing about NASCAR statistics.
Most of Mayer’s numbers are very similar to 2022-23. His average finish is up just 0.3, he’s one short of his top-five and top-10 totals from last year and although he’s more than tripled his laps led from 53 to 177, that still ranks just 10th. Yet no one would consider this season – particularly the second half – as anything less than a massive breakthrough.
Road America launched Sam Mayer’s championship push
Mayer scored his first Xfinity Series win in July at Road America, his home track, followed that up three races later again on a road course, Watkins Glen, and then in the playoffs won on the Charlotte infield course and at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“We put ourselves in a really good spot through the summer,” Mayer said. “We were pretty much locked into the playoffs even without that win. Then that win came up at home, and that kind of propelled us forward. Because we finally knew that we could do it. We beat a Cup driver, one of the best road racers to do it, in AJ Allmendinger.”
Mayer hit a stretch at the end of the regular season and start of the playoffs in which he crashed out of three straight races but advanced by winning at Charlotte in the final race of the round of 12. Then he broke through for his first Xfinity Series oval victory at Homestead in the second race of the round of eight.
Las Vegas and Homestead were big for Sam Mayer
“Homestead was borderline perfect,” Mayer said. “Winning that race made winning Phoenix that much more possible in our heads because we won on an oval, we did our job, we had a perfect day. We didn’t make mistakes. We didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot. We went out there and just did it.
“We put ourselves in a spot where we were able to focus on the car so much and put so much fluff and buff on it that we’re going to Phoenix with a chance to win a championship and we’re feeling the best we’ve ever felt about any race car throughout the year.
“We just have so much going for us and the positivity we have is awesome.”
And as important as the Homestead win was for propelling Mayer into contention in the finale, there was also great value in finishing fifth a week earlier at Las Vegas. The track has never been particularly good for Mayer, and he was struggling behind the wheel of a good car early on.
“I got myself together. Kevin Hamlin, my spotter, and (crew chief) Mardy Lindley on top of the box, they kept me in the game, they kept me mentally strong and we got a fifth-place finish out of it,” Mayer said.
“It’s days like that that define you. Obviously winning solves everything, but having bad days turn into decent days, that’s what wins championships.”
Racing with Kyle Larson at Darlington was a breakthrough for Sam Mayer
Although earning his first Xfinity victory on his home track in Elkhart Lake may seem like the breakthrough moment for Mayer, he pointed to a race 2½ months earlier – one in which he finished eighth – as the most important of his career.
At tough Darlington Raceway, Mayer found himself alongside 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson for a restart.
“I’m pretty happy about that because I’m out front at Darlington,” Mayer said. “And we go for a restart, and I actually beat him on a restart at one of the hardest places to do it at.”
Then he did it again. And a third time.
“I was like, oh, my god, I can do it. I can do it. I can do it,” Mayer said. “That was the gate opening up for me, at that moment. … It was at that moment that I look back on and I’m like, man, that’s the first time I noticed myself doing my freaking job. It was fun. It opened a whole new door for me.”
Mayer freely admits he has a lot to learn, that he’ll continue to make mistakes, that his development is far from over and that he’s at an experience deficit to three championship opponents who have a combined 44 Xfinity victories and more than 40 Cup Series starts apiece.
Noah Gragson offered insight into Xfinity Series championship week
“I don’t know if I’m going to sleep Friday night. I really don’t,” said Mayer, who spent upwards of an hour talking with former teammate Noah Gragson about what to expect, on and off the track, from championship week.
“It’s my first championship four appearance. It’s my second playoff appearance. It’s my second full-time year, for that matter. I deserve to be here.
“There’s going to be plenty of championship four appearances, hopefully, in the future, but you only get one first time. And I’m going to try to enjoy it.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin racer Sam Mayer competes for NASCAR Xfinity title at Phoenix
