After winning last Saturday’s (June 15) NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway, Sam Mayer made it clear he wasn’t happy. Of course, he was thrilled with the victory, but when he was asked about whether he feels he should be considered for a NASCAR Cup Series ride, he was unequivocal.
“Yea, it kind of pisses me off to be honest with you,” Mayer said. “I feel like we’ve proved ourselves a lot more, like I’m dead serious, it makes me so mad that my name isn’t in more hats with race teams. So, hopefully today kind of put my name in a couple of them. We’re working really hard, I want to go Sunday racing obviously one day. How soon? I don’t know.”
The Franklin, Wis., native will turn 21 years old on June 26. Among the top 15 in the Xfinity Series driver points, only Sammy Smith and Jesse Love are younger. Mayer is in his third full-time Xfinity season, but he is still young and a far cry from slipping into lifer status in the second series.
Mayer’s JR Motorsports team has served as a pipeline for drivers to learn their craft, compile wins, and get promoted to Cup. Josh Berry was the most recent graduate, a unique situation to be sure; Berry was already 33-years-old when he made the jump. Before Berry was Noah Gragson who spent four seasons with JRM before running full-time in Cup beginning in 2023 at the age of 24.
The last major Cup rookie class came in 2020. That season saw Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek and Cole Custer all move up to the big show. That quartet had an average age over 23 when they began their rookie campaigns in Cup.
So why the urgency from Mayer? Why does he feel he’s not received the recognition and consideration he deserves? I have theories.
Mayer Versus Gibbs
There is a Cup rookie from the 2023 class that didn’t get mentioned above: Ty Gibbs. Mayer and Gibbs have been rivals going back to at least 2018 when they both ran full-time in the CARS Late Model Stock Car Tour. That year it was Mayer, at the ripe old age of 15, who out performed Gibbs, who is almost nine moths older than Mayer. Gibbs went winless that year, while Mayer collected one win and four more top 10s. This young gun duo kept battling throughout 2019 and 2020.
In 2021, Mayer’s career growth started to fall behind that of Gibbs. Both drivers ran part-time Xfinity schedules. Each ran 18 races, but Gibbs had four wins to Mayer’s zero. Gibbs also continued to run the full ARCA…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …