Sam Mayer raced beyond his years on Saturday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The JR Motorsports driver had to win the Drive for The Cure 250 and he’d do just that in a walk off win in his No. 1 Chevrolet.
“We may be Allmendinger 2.0,” Sam Mayer quipped after winning Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 250 presented by BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval and clinching a spot in the Round of 8 in the series playoffs.
The reference was to AJ Allmendinger, winner of the previous four Xfinity races at the 2.32-mile, 17-turn circuit. With Allmendinger ineligible for the race as a full-time NASCAR Cup driver this year, Mayer took over and got the win he needed to advance in the playoffs.
Mayer entered the day -34 to the cutline and knowing that he needed a win, the ROVAL was the perfect spot for him to do so. He passed Cole Custer with five laps remaining and never looked back in beating Custer by .909-seconds en route to his third win of his career, all coming on a road course.
“I knew we had time,” said Mayer, who led five times for 50 laps. “Our car was so fast—it really felt unbeatable… We kicked their tails today, and it just feels so great.
“This is our second-chance moment. I think we can make something out of it… We can go on and do great things because of this win.”
Josh Berry, Riley Herbst, Kaz Grala rounded out the top five.
Advancing to the Round of 8 are:
- 20 Nemechek – 3rd, 1st, 3rd, 1st, 8th in last 5. Led 99 laps in Darlington, 154 at Kansas, 1 at Bristo, 38 at Kansas and 2 in Charlotte. Was 6th in Vegas and won Martinsville. Also 5th and 3rd at Darlington this year. On short tracks, has 1 win, 3 top 5s and 3 top 10’s. Has led 210 laps and scored second most points (145). On intermediates, has 6 wins, 10 top 5’s and 13 top 10’s. Has also led 723 laps too. 1st visit to the Round of 8 for the 26-year-old.
- 7 Allgaier – 1st, 5th, 37th in playoffs. He’s led 253 laps this postseason (110 in Bristol, 133 at Texas, 10 at Charlotte) and taken stage finishes of 2nd, 1st in Bristol, 1st, 1st at Texas and 1st, 17th at Charlotte. Was 2nd in Vegas and 6th in Martinsville this spring. 2nd and 7th at Darlington. 4th most short track points (126) with a win and 2 top 10’s. Has led 3x for 118 laps on them. On intermediates, has 1 win, 6 top 5’s and 8 top 10’s with the third most points (541). Has led 10 races for 363 laps too. 8th straight trip to the Round of 8. Make the final round 5 times (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022).
- 1 Mayer – All 3 wins on road courses. 19th, 11th, 37th, 35th, 38th, 1st in last 6 races. 7th in Vegas, 31st in Martinsville this spring. 8th and 11th at Darlington. Ranks 9th on intermediate track points (399) with 5 top 5’s and 8 top 10’s.
- 00 Custer – 4th, 6th, 2nd in playoffs. 6th, 7th, 5th, 4th, 36th before playoffs. Led 109 laps in Bristol, 28th in Texas and 4 at Charlotte. Finished 12th in Vegas and 5th in Martinsville. 3rd and 4th at Darlington. 13 race winless streak. On short tracks, has scored the most points (146) and has 3 top 10 finishes, all in top 5 and 114 laps led. On intermediate tracks has the fourth most points (466) with 4 top 5’s and 7 top 10’s. Has led 7 races for 162 laps. He’s 4-for-4 in making the Round of 8. He made the final round in 2018 and 2019.
- 21 Hill – 2nd, 5th, 33rd, 7th, 9th in last 5 starts. Won Vegas and 16th in Martinsville this spring. Hasn’t led a lap in 8 of the last 10 races. 4th and 2nd at Darlington. 10 race winless streak. Only 18th most short track points with just 1 top 10. On intermediates, he ranks P2 in points (599) with 2 wins, 9 top 5’s and 12 top 10’s. Has led 99 laps. Made this round last year.
- 2 Creed – 11th, 8th, 10th in playoffs. 8th, 2nd, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 11th, 8th, 10th in last 8 races overall. Was 9th in Vegas, 27th in Martinsville this spring. 9th in Vegas and 27th in Martinsville. 25th and 8th in Darlington. Has never won. Just 14th on short track points and 10th on intermediates.
- 18 Sammy Smith – 9th, 3rd, 11th in playoffs. Just 1 top 5 in last 11. 17th in Vegas, 2nd in Martinsville this year. 11th and 17th at Darlington. Has led 5 total laps since Pocono in June. 25 race winless streak. Ranks P8 intermediate points and P5 on short tracks.
- 16 Chandler Smith – 5th, 4th, 12th in playoffs. 1 lap led since Pocono. 3rd in Vegas, 10th in Martinsville and 36th and 12th at Darlington. 22 race winless streak. Has 3rd most short track points with a win, two top 5’s and 3 top 10’s and P6 on intermediate track points.
Road Course Aces 1-2
Sam Mayer has scored the most road course points this season with three wins (Road America, Watkins Glen, Charlotte ROVAL) to go along with 5 top five finishes and 7 top 10’s in 8 races on them.
What’s impressive is the fact that he was reeling entering the weekend. While he had a stretch of 5 straight top 5 finishes including 4 of which in the top 2, he’s came home 19th, 11th, 37th, 35th, 38th since. In saying that, his road course finishes this season have been 7th, 3rd, 10th, 18th, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st.
Custer was runner-up in his No. 00 Ford. With 9 races between road courses and streets, Mayer and Custer combined to have won 5 of them.
Custer was 32nd, 1st, 6th, 1st, 30th, 6th, 7th, 2nd on these tracks and 7th, 8th, 2nd in his three starts here.
“We struggled on the short run, for sure,” Custer said. “It’s frustrating. There are definitely things on the replay I could have done different, but our guys did a great job all day, getting our car to where we could compete for a win—but we just needed a little more.”
Berry, Hemric, Kligerman, Burton Come Up Short
Josh Berry, Daniel Hemric, Parker Kligerman and Jeb Burton were eliminated on Saturday. 2 of the 4 are going Cup racing next season with Berry replacing Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 Ford and Hemric moving up to the No. 31 Chevrolet for Kaulig.
Still, I think one could say 3 of the 4 being outed in Round 1 was somewhat shocking.
Berry was in the Championship 4 last year. Hemric won the title two years ago. Now, both are eliminated.
Mayer’s win bumps Hemric out as he has finished 10th, 3rd, 3rd, 17th and now 7th here but on road courses this season has seen him finish 6th, 33rd, 13th, 7th, 11th, 27th, 23rd, 7th. He’s finished in the top 10 in 4 of the last 6 races but 2 of the last 4 have seen him come home 24th or worse too which is why he missed the Round of 8 by 2 points.
He was 2nd in both stages but comes up just shy. Hemric was eliminated in this round last year too.
“They came out in the bottom of the seventh and hit a home run,” said Hemric, who finished second in each of the first two stages and was bounced from the postseason only because Mayer won from last place in the Xfinity Playoff standings.
Berry’s not had a very good final season in the Xfinity Series. While he was third on Saturday, he was 36th and 27th in the other 2 first round playoff races. In fact, he’s finished 14th or worse in 7 of his last 10 starts in general. On road courses, Berry has results of 8th, 4th, 33rd, 23rd, 6th, 14th, 20th, 3rd. He’s also winless on the season.
How much of Berry’s and Hemric’s lack of results applies to going Cup racing next season?
Kligerman’s issue was lack of playoff points. Just 1 point separated he and Hemric but Kligerman had scored the 4th most points on road courses (194) entering this weekend with finishes of 31st, 14th, 5th, 9th, 2nd, 7th, 3rd on them. He’s also had 8 top 10 finishes in his last 10 starts on the season too including finishing 3rd, 4th, 24th, 4th, 31st, 2nd in the last six.
He came home 6th but was eliminated.
Lap 55 Caution Changed Race
The race was really incident free for much of it with until Lap 54, the only caution outside of a stage break came for Conor Daly getting into the Turn 15 wall on Lap 38. That’d be the Stage 2 break as well.
Then came that Lap 55 caution for debris. All but 2 cars pit. Justin Allgaier stayed out but he had just pit on Lap 54. Jeb Burton threw a hail mary and last pit on Lap 35.
The duo crashed into each other in Turn 1 on the Lap 59 restart. Burton took responsibility for incident saying he lost control of his car and hated that Allgaier got caught up in his wreck.
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