Entering the NASCAR Xfinity Series season, Sam Mayer was fresh off his rookie season in the series in 2022. While he went winless, a seventh-place result in the playoffs was certainly a solid result.
However, Mayer and the No. 1 JR Motorsports team were looking for more.
“I learned a lot about myself and a lot about these cars even more, and just the aggression that you kind of have to have in the Xfinity Series to perform,” Mayer told SPEED SPORT.
“Taking that into 2023, this year, it’s like, I really didn’t do much different, we just kind of put full races together and did our job to the maximum capacity as much as we could.”
The first five months of the season saw Mayer earn 11 top-10 finishes, though a win still eluded him.
That was, until a triumph at Road America in his home state of Wisconsin flipped the switch on the No. 1 team’s season.
With his first Xfinity Series victory having the added element of countless friends and family in attendance, it was a moment to remember.
“Victory lane was electric,” Mayer recalled. “There was probably 300-400 people in victory lane just crowding around chanting my name and screaming and shouting.
“It was really cool to be able to watch that. Something like that will never happen again unless I win a championship or a Cup championship one day.
“But to have that big of a crowd come to my first win was pretty unreal.”
Mayer reeled off another win on a road course at New York’s Watkins Glen Int’l in August. He comfortably entered the playoffs, but faced adversity during the Round of 12.
Three straight crashes dipped Mayer below the cutline, with only a win at North Carolina’s Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL able to bring the No. 1 back above the surface.
In game-seven-like fashion, Mayer won the pole and led a race-high 50 of the 67 laps to lift his team into the Round of 8.
“It was probably one of the craziest races to win because I love road racing,” Mayer said. “Like I said, it’s what I grew up doing. So, I feel confident every time I show up to them.
“That day, I just kind of showed up with that extra bit of confidence because I knew it was a zero-fail mission. And we made it happen.”
Two weeks later, Mayer scored his first victory on an oval in the Xfinity Series at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The win punched his ticket to the Championship 4.
With it being Mayer’s first shot at a championship trophy in the series, there were plenty of unknowns.
Fortunately for Mayer, he had the help of an array of experienced minds at his disposal, including former teammate Noah Gragson.
“I talked to Noah, and he said to me that he didn’t enjoy his first Championship 4 experience enough, and he feels like he missed out on a lot of things and a lot of even learning opportunities that weekend because he was so focused on performing,” Mayer recalled.
“I think after talking to him and a lot of other people about it, I just went in there and said, ‘You know what, I earned my spot here. I did my keep for the year. We did all our jobs to get here, and that’s all you can do. Now you just got to go enjoy the experience. Enjoy the fact that you get a guaranteed top four at the end of the year.’
“‘It’s another race at the end of the day, so just enjoy all the accolades that come with it because it only happens once for your first time.’”
Perhaps what gave Mayer a shot in the arm prior to the season finale at Phoenix Raceway was from NASCAR Hall of Famer and team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Earnhardt, who balances ownership duties while being an analyst for NBC’s NASCAR coverage, has become a sounding board for the young Wisconsin driver.
“His name and everything else aside, he’s one of the best people that you can just go and talk to and talk his ear off,” Mayer beamed. “He’ll talk your ear off right back, and you can have a good conversation, good learning conversation.
“You can have hard conversations and he’s just someone you can talk to.”
While Mayer’s bid for a championship ended with a third-place result in the standings, he closed the book on his breakout season with added wisdom and confidence.
As Mayer describes it, he and the No. 1 team “stay in the game no matter what.”
“After Kansas, Texas, Vegas wasn’t that great of a race and Daytona obviously it was Daytona,” Mayer said. “We had a 3-5-race stretch during the playoffs that was not good at all.
“We just stayed in the game. We didn’t give up, we fought the adversity as best we could. Obviously we came out really decent at the end of it. We could have ended up 12th in the playoff standings at one point and we ended up third.
“So, we stayed in the game, we did our job and we fought adversity. We learned a lot this year. I mean, I’ve grown as a race car driver exponentially compared to the start of the year compared to two years ago,” Mayer continued.
“I’m a way different driver than I was months and years ago. That’s a huge thanks to my team. JRM has done a really good job giving me the right people and the right equipment and resources to go out there and do the thing, do the job.
“We did the best we could with it and I think we’re gonna do even better next year.”