Sam Mayer earns a needed runner-up finish at Martinsville (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
RIDGEWAY, Va. — After racing for the NASCAR XFINITY Series Championship in November, Sam Mayer and the No. 1 team have not had the same speed in the first races of the 2024 season with only one top-10 finish coming into Martinsville Speedway this weekend.
However, the string of uncharacteristic finishes for the No. 1 team is behind them with Mayer bringing home a runner-up finish on Saturday evening from the DUDE Wipes 250 at Martinsville.
The start to the weekend did not look much different for Mayer as he placed 15th in practice after 28 laps. Mayer showed more speed in qualifying, running a lap time of 19.834 seconds to earn himself a ninth-place starting position
Throughout Stage 1, the Franklin, Wisconsin, native drove his way up to a fourth-place stage finish. By Lap 81, Mayer restarted second in the outside lane and maintained his position until another restart on Lap 91.
On that particular lap, Mayer made contact with the exit of Turn 4 and fell back to ninth in just one lap. Mayer was unable to get back any track position with the remaining 28 laps in Stage 2 as he logged a 13th place stage finish.
Throughout the final stage, Mayer drove back up to the front. The. 20-year-old was back inside the top-10 with 88 laps to go in the 251-lap race.
After gaining two positions during a pit stop with 78 laps to go, Mayer drove to seventh with 67 laps left in the race. With 22 laps remaining, Mayer worked his way up into the third position, passing Sheldon Creed’s No. 18 ride.
Sam Mayer takes to the paperclip known as Martinsville Speedway during a Friday on track session. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
Then, Mayer led the final restart of the race, sitting in the ideal position to win his first race of 2024. After some hard contact from Creed, he was not able to maintain the lead after Creed took Mayer and Almirola three wide, and settled in second behind Almirola.
After the race, Mayer considered how it felt being so close to a win after a rough start to the season.
“This season has been been a bag of trash,” Mayer added. “Sad, ugly, disappointing; all the ugly words that you can say about something. But to have a night like this to be a really good points day for one, we’re digging ourselves out of a hole.
“I said I feel like I’m letting everyone down, but when I was wrecking all those race cars four or five years ago, that’s when I was letting people down. Finishing the race and doing the best with what we’ve got and the situation I’ve been put in that’s all you can ask for.”
Mayer currently sits 16th in points, 163 points behind leader Chandler Smith. Although Mayer has the pace to win, he knows it will take more than a trip to Victory Lane to feel like he has the form of last year.
“A win’s not going to technically take the monkey off your back,” Mayer said. “It’s a string of solid finishes. That starts today and we’re going to race for $100 grand and keep going.”
Editor’s Notes
Nathan Solomon contributed to this article at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.
