Sam Mayer’s Promising Darlington Race Ends with Flat Tire, Spin While Leading

DARLINGTON, S.C. –– If the first 38 laps of Saturday’s (Aug. 31) NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway were any indication, Sam Mayer might’ve had the fastest car in the field.

Qualifying third, Mayer had successfully reeled in polesitter Christopher Bell for the lead on lap 28, and then set sail with the top spot.

But 38 laps were all Mayer got at the front of the field, as he suffered a flat tire while leading and looped his No. 1 car around in a 360-degree spin by the time he reached turn 1.

“I think [the tire] was going down for a while,” Mayer said. “I think that’s why our balance was so good. But yeah, it’s just unfortunate. Obviously, we had a really fast car. Super proud of all these guys.

“… Not how we wanted it to go, but we showed that we were here. We went up there and passed all those Cup guys and didn’t leave the top three until our incident.”

Mayer might’ve had a chance to recover, but a caution never came out for his spin, much to his surprise.

“I lost control and went up and almost went into the field,” Mayer said. “I was like, ‘holy crap, there’s going to be a caution for sure.’ And then there wasn’t, so I quickly looped it back around.

“It’s just part of it, unfortunately.”

The spin trapped Mayer a lap down, a lap that he could never get back. He finished the race a lap down in 28th for his ninth finish outside the top 25 this season.

Had Mayer been able to get the lap back, he still had the speed to seriously challenge the frontrunners.

“If we were able to get back on the lead lap and have equal tires with everybody, I think our car was still good,” Mayer said. “We had brake problems because we did tear the brake line off the left rear with that [tire] carcass, so it knocked some speed out of it.

“But honestly, the balance of our car was so good that we going to be pretty unbeatable today.”

Mayer has two wins in 2024, but inconsistency and bad breaks like Darlington have left him with an average finish of 18.0. He’ll head to Atlanta Motor Speedway next Saturday (Sept. 7), where he’ll look to snap a nine-race skid that has seen him finish no better than 10th.