After a rough start to his 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, Sam Mayer broke out of the slump at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday (April 13).
The JR Motorsports driver narrowly beat out Ryan Sieg in a photo finish, winning by a margin of victory of 0.002 seconds.
Mayer ended up leading only five laps in his win but led the one that counted. It was his first victory since Homestead-Miami Speedway last October.
Sieg finished second, with Mayer’s JRM teammate Justin Allgaier finishing third after leading 117 laps. AJ Allmendinger fought back from a pit road mishap early in the race to finish fourth, and Cole Custer rounded out the top five.
Winners:
Aside from taking the checkered flag, Mayer finding victory lane is a significant development for his 2024 season. He didn’t dominate the race but was there when it counted most.
Mayer sat 16th in points following last week’s race at Martinsville Speedway and was as low as 20th in the standings just two weeks ago following the race at Richmond Raceway. He now sits 14th in points, locked into the playoffs with the win, and has seemingly turned around his season after starting the year with three DNFs in his first four races.
The driver that he edged out for the win, Sieg, certainly turned heads at Texas. Despite not winning the race, Sieg took home his second career runner-up finish at a non-drafting track and his third overall, with the last coming at Talladega Superspeedway in the fall of 2020.
It was also Sieg’s first top-five finish since the Talladega fall race in 2022. Sieg now sits five points above the playoff cut line in 12th place heading into Talladega, a track where he’s finished inside of the top five on four different occasions.
Making his first start since the second race of the season, Ryan Truex finished inside of the top 10, coming home in seventh. Truex showed solid speed throughout the weekend despite being away from the car for five races, with his last start coming at Atlanta Motor Speedway at the end of February.
It’s not atypical for Truex to pick up strong after lengthy hiatuses from the car, as he finished runner-up at Phoenix Raceway in 2023 for Joe Gibbs Racing 19 races after his previous start in the series at that time. Truex will return to the series next week at Talladega. He finished 21st in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway…
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