Sam Mayer and Ty Gibbs have a history. Another chapter in their rivalry sparked at the end of Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen International. Gibbs swept both stages and was well on his way to scoring his second straight win in back-to-back weeks before some late race carnage put this race in overtime.
Prior to that, Gibbs held a commanding lead of over 10 seconds. As they went green on the final restart in overtime, Mayer did his own bump-and-run to push Gibbs out of the way and to hold on for his second career win in Saturday’s Shriners Children’s 200 at The Glen.
“On that first one, I got used up, thought I had a good one there’’ Mayer said of the two overtime restarts. “All glory to God for this one because we had to work our tails off for it.”
He said that he had some wheel hop on that Turn 1 incident. Gibbs didn’t see it that way.
“I think when you have to race out of desperation like that and you wheel-hop and take the leader out, I guess you can call it a racing incident but it just really sucks,’’ Gibbs said after leading a race-high 70 of 86 laps. “We had a really fast Toyota Supra and I really appreciate all the team’s hard work. We had a really good time out there and wish that caution didn’t come. Definitely sucks to get cleaned out there.
“It’s a part of life and a part of racing and you just get over it and when stuff like that happens, desperate moves like that happen, it’s just part of it and you try to keep going. We were really fast.
“I don’t know really know how much of a conversation you can really have with him in that situation,’’ Gibbs said when asked if wanted to have words with Mayer.
“We kind of grew up racing around each other and I think he has more starts than I do and this is his second win so congratulations to him on his second win. Definitely wish I could have gotten my 13th there.’’
Shots taken.
Mayer held on and propelled by .909-seconds over Sheldon Creed for his third top 10 finish in as many tries at Watkins Glen.
“I wheel-hopped it, that’s unfortunate and I feel bad for doing that, obviously you don’t want to take out any car like that’’ Mayer added. “Just trying to get another win in the Xfinity Series. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I was in there, I put my nose in there and that’s part of it.
Parker Kligerman came through the wreck to finish third in the No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet, followed by NASCAR Cup Series regular Ross Chastain in the No. 91 DGM Chevrolet and Connor Mosack in the No. 24 Sam Hunt Racing Toyota.
John Hunter Nemechek, Cole Custer, Chandler Smith, Alex Bowman and Jeb Burton rounded out the top 10.
Justin Allgaier was cleaned out in the end too and finished a disappointing 16th. That’s his 4th finish of 14th or worse in the last 5 races. However, he does have speed. He finished 2nd in Stage 1 and 4th in Stage 2 after qualifying 3rd.
His teammate Josh Berry also had misfortunes after being 4th and 7th in the pair of stages. He finished 20th for his 6th sub 14th place finish (23rd, 19th, 17th, 24th, 6th, 2nd, 14th, 20th) in the last 8 races.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series moves to Daytona International Speedway next week for Friday’s Wawa 250 Powered by Coca-Cola (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Jeremy Clements is the defending race winner. Hill won at Daytona in February.
Mayer On Hot Streak, Can He Keep It Going While Making Enemies?
Sam Mayer is showing now that this is who we thought he’d be. Saturday was his sixth top five finish in the last seven races including five straight. Those five finishes are 2nd, 1st 5th, 2nd, 1st.
He picked up his first career win on a road course three races ago in Road America and is honestly starting to enter the championship conversation if he keeps this up. He had just two top five finishes in the first 14 races to the season but has doubled that just in this stretch.
The thing is, he’s making enemies. Can he keep it going and risk being clocked out?
Fair Game To Take Out Cup Regular?
Sam Mayer made mention that he was overly aggressive to take out a cup regular. Is that fair game?
“That’s an accident, but I think everyone can agree it’s okay for an Xfinity Series regular to win this race,” said Mayer.
Mayer is just the 2nd Xfinity Series regular to win this race since 2000.
Cup Series regulars have won this race in 16 of the last 18 tries. From Ryan Newman (2005) to Kurt Busch (2006, 2011) to Kevin Harvick (2007) to Marcos Ambrose (2008, 2009, 2010, 2014) to Carl Edwards (2012) to Brad Keselowski (2013), Joey Logano (2014, 2015, 2018), Kyle Busch (2016), Austin Cindric (2019) and Kyle Larson (2022), this has been a Cup dominated event. Gibbs’ win in 2021 was the first time since Ron Fellows in 2001 that a non Cup driver won this event. The last NXS regular outside of Gibbs and now Mayer to win was Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 1999.
A week ago in Indy, Ty Gibbs and AJ Allmendinger went 1-3 but were arguably the top two cars in the speed department all race with the Cup duo combining to lead 49 of 62 laps. That comes after Allmendinger led 42 laps in last year’s win.
This was the second straight season that Cup guys went 1-2 in Indy with Allmendinger beating Alex Bowman in 2022. Ross Chastain was fourth while Chase Briscoe was fifth.
The year prior, it was 2-4.
Gibbs Dominates
Ty Gibbs was the best driver with the best car on Saturday. From sweeping both stages, to leading all but 16 laps and holding a lead of over 10 seconds with 10 to go, this was his race to lose. He didn’t do anything wrong before Mayer dumped him.
Kligerman’s Strong Run Pushes Him Closer To Playoff Berth
Kligerman’s third-place showing was important as the series heads towards its Playoffs next month. He pulled to within three-points of Riley Herbst for that final transfer position. Herbst’s No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford had a rough day, retiring on Lap 37 and taking a 35th place finish. He had led Kligerman by 17 points coming into the Watkins Glen race.
“We had a great finish and salvaged great points,’’ Kligerman said. “We kept ourselves in the fight, but I’ve got to sort through this one.
“To me, three [points], 15 [points], it all feels the same. It’s so close that can happen in a stage essentially. We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing. We scored stage points in all stages today so that is a big deal for us.’’
“I think we’re doing the right things, just need a little more,’’ he added with a smile.
Herbst was frustrated, but said he was optimistic about upcoming races – at Daytona Beach, Darlington, S.C. and Kansas to set the 12-driver Playoff field.
“I don’t think we should be in this situation as it is, it’s just frustrating,’’ Herbst said. “We have some good tracks for us and good tracks for Stewart-Haas Racing, I’m excited. It’s just frustrating that things like this beyond our control keep happening, but it’ll turn around one day and when it does we’ll be happy.”
Kligerman has finished 5th, 11th, 9th, 8th, 32nd, 9th, 2nd, 8th, 7th, 3rd over the last 10 weeks.
2nd place finisher, Sheldon Creed now goes up to +22. This was his 2nd top 10 finish in-a-row. He had none in the previous 8 starts.
Hill Still Leads Nemechek
Austin Hill, who was among those collected in the overtime re-start finished 14th and now holds a nine-point advantage over Nemechek atop the championship standings. The duo was tied entering Indy last week and it grew to 11 leaving. Now, it’s down to 9.
Nemechek finished 6th for his 6th top 6 result in the last 9 races.
Hill takes with him to Daytona 11 top 8 finishes in the last 14 races including results of 4th, 5th, 12th, 3rd, 1st, 3rd, 11th, 4th, 14th since late June.
Hill and Nemechek have won 3 of the 4 superspeedway’s this season with Hill winning at Daytona back in February and Atlanta in March. Nemechek won the return trip to Atlanta last month.
NASCAR Xfinity Series Race – Shriners Children’s 200
Watkins Glen International
Watkins Glen, New York
Saturday, August 19, 2023
- (5) Sam Mayer, Chevrolet, 86.
- (13) Sheldon Creed, Chevrolet, 86.
- (14) Parker Kligerman, Chevrolet, 86.
- (17) Ross Chastain(i), Chevrolet, 86.
- (19) Connor Mosack, Toyota, 86.
- (12) John Hunter Nemechek, Toyota, 86.
- (4) Cole Custer, Ford, 86.
- (18) Chandler Smith #, Chevrolet, 86.
- (2) Alex Bowman(i), Chevrolet, 86.
- (25) Jeb Burton, Chevrolet, 86.
- (24) Brandon Jones, Chevrolet, 86.
- (32) Brennan Poole, Chevrolet, 86.
- (33) Kyle Weatherman, Chevrolet, 86.
- (11) Austin Hill, Chevrolet, 86.
- (21) Sage Karam, Chevrolet, 86.
- (3) Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet, 86.
- (1) Ty Gibbs(i), Toyota, 86.
- (9) Sammy Smith #, Toyota, 86.
- (37) Kyle Sieg, Ford, 86.
- (7) Josh Berry, Chevrolet, 86.
- (26) Ryan Sieg, Ford, 86.
- (36) Joe Graf Jr., Ford, 85.
- (6) Daniel Hemric, Chevrolet, 84.
- (22) Alex Labbe, Chevrolet, 83.
- (28) Josh Bilicki, Ford, 83.
- (29) Parker Retzlaff #, Chevrolet, 82.
- (8) Kyle Busch(i), Chevrolet, Transmission, 78.
- (15) Kaz Grala, Toyota, Accident, 78.
- (20) Brett Moffitt, Ford, Suspension, 66.
- (35) Ryan Ellis, Chevrolet, 65.
- (27) Anthony Alfredo, Chevrolet, Axle, 61.
- (38) Stanton Barrett, Toyota, Suspension, 56.
- (23) Stefan Parsons, Chevrolet, Brakes, 45.
- (31) Max McLaughlin, Chevrolet, Accident, 43.
- (10) Riley Herbst, Ford, Suspension, 37.
- (34) Josh Williams, Chevrolet, Accident, 23.
- (16) Jeremy Clements, Chevrolet, Suspension, 21.
- (30) Blaine Perkins #, Chevrolet, Transmission, 11.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 86.857 mph.
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 25 Mins, 33 Secs. Margin of Victory: .909 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 5 for 18 laps.
Lead Changes: 9 among 6 drivers.
Lap Leaders: T. Gibbs(i) 1-21;J. Allgaier 22;A. Bowman(i) 23-26;T. Gibbs(i) 27-47;C. Custer 48;K. Weatherman 49-50;T. Gibbs(i) 51-72;S. Mayer 73-78;T. Gibbs(i) 79-84;S. Mayer 85-86.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): Ty Gibbs(i) 4 times for 70 laps; Sam Mayer 2 times for 8 laps; Alex Bowman(i) 1 time for 4 laps; Kyle Weatherman 1 time for 2 laps; Justin Allgaier 1 time for 1 lap; Cole Custer 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 19,7,1,8,21,20,2,98,00,48
Stage #2 Top Ten: 19,17,21,7,00,1,8,20,2,48
Race Review Online 