Never Say Die: Mayer Moves On With Another ROVAL Win

CONCORD, N.C. – For the second straight year, Sam Mayer converted a must-win scenario at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL into a berth in the second round of the NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs.

With an overtime lunge at the turn-seven hairpin on then-leader Parker Kligerman, Mayer made the winning pass stick coming onto the speedway banking. He then pulled away over the final lap-and-a-half of the Drive for the Cure 250 en route to his third win of the year – as well as a season-saving moment.

Running second at the start of overtime, Mayer was on the outside-looking-in of advancing in the postseason, but did what he had to do when it mattered most to reign victorious once again when his back was against the wall.

“The Good Lord above has blessed me with a lot of issues and learning moments this year, but has given me a lot of ways to overcome them too, and that’s what we did today,” said Mayer of his seventh career win and third this season.

“To come out here to Charlotte Motor Speedway, go back-to-back with a fast, fast car … and get it done at home [for JR Motorsports] is something special,” he continued. “Man, we had to work for this one.”

Though he had what appeared to be the fastest car on-track for much of the afternoon, Mayer’s quest for the win was nearly derailed at the very start due to a procedural violation on the initial green flag.

With a revamped start zone in the second half of the final chicane, Mayer fired first against polesitter Shane van Gisbergen, drawing the ire of NASCAR officials and leading to an immediate pass-through penalty as a result.

Luckily for Mayer, with the way that pit road blends back onto the racetrack at the ROVAL, the miscue only dropped him from the lead to 18th place, just 10 seconds behind the front of the field at that point.

Mayer rallied back to 10th by the latter stages of the opening stanza, but pitted on lap 18 to flip the stage and gain track position as a result. He never let the front of the field get too far away after that, all the way down to his last-gasp pass.

“We were all crossed up getting off in there [to turn seven] all day. I was loose into [turn] six, but I knew that section was my only shot, if I got into the hairpin at the right angle,” Mayer explained. “[Kligerman] blocked the bottom, which was actually good for me because it gave me the better angle up off the corner [onto the banking] … and once the grip hooked up, we were gone from there.

“This one is super special and one that I’ll remember for a long time.”

Amid the drama for the win, a race of varying strategies saw the contrast between those racing for stage points and those targeting the race win take center stage, with A.J. Allmendinger winning stage one over teammate van Gisbergen in a caution-free 20 laps before Justin Allgaier captured the second segment.

Stage two proved to be far more chaotic, with a lap-27 caution for debris in turn two leading to subsequent chaos on the lap-30 restart that ended with Matt DiBenedetto nose-first into the tire barriers at turn six.

The first real turning point of the race, however, came at the end of lap 33 when Anthony Alfredo and Riley Herbst traded paint leaving the frontstretch chicane in a skirmish that sent Herbst spinning in front of a host of cars.

By the time the smoke cleared and others piled in, nine cars were involved, including major damage for Herbst and fellow playoff contender Sheldon Creed.

While Herbst was able to continue after clearing the DVP clock and undergoing repairs in the garage area for a severely bent trackbar, Creed’s car retired shortly thereafter with a souring engine.

The end result for both was the same, however, as Herbst’s 32nd-place finish and Creed’s 35th-place DNF meant they were two of the four drivers eliminated from championship contention at the finish.

From there, the final stage was only interrupted twice, and one of those was at lap 53 when Thomas Annunziata lost brakes and plowed into the tire barriers at the entrance to turn one.

Annunziata’s crash led to a final round of pit service for most of the frontrunners – including Mayer and Kligerman, who both bolted on fresh Goodyear tires – while van Gisbergen stayed out believing track position would be the ticket to his fourth road-course victory of the season.

Four cars – van Gisbergen, Austin Green, Preston Pardus, and Jesse Love – lined up on older tires for a restart with 12 laps left, while Mayer and Kligerman shared the third row in fifth and sixth.

Their newer rubber made hay in a hurry.

It took Kligerman just three laps to knife through traffic and wrest control of the race from van Gisbergen, and as soon as Mayer followed suit into second, a cat-and-mouse game was on for the win.

Kligerman parried Mayer’s advances nearly the whole way, especially once Mayer lost momentum twice inside of five to go with a transmission stumble, but the most dramatic – and heartbreaking – moment for Kligerman came as the white flag was being hoisted into the wind.

At nearly the exact moment that Kligerman hit the start-finish line to begin the final lap, the caution lights blinked on for an incident involving Leland Honeyman, who was buried roof-deep in a tire barrier and unable to get his car moving again.

Though Kligerman appeared initially to have reached the white flag before the caution was displayed, a video review showed he was roughly two feet short of the flagstand, leading to the overtime finish that ultimately denied Kligerman his first Xfinity Series victory.

Allmendinger, van Gisbergen, Austin Hill, and Chandler Smith all muscled past Kligerman on the final lap, leaving him a disappointing sixth, but the number on paper didn’t matter at all compared to the dejection of losing the win and an assured playoff berth in the Round of 8.

“I’ve done this interview [for others] before, and it’s always tough on that side, but it’s really tough on this side as a driver … I won’t lie,” said Kligerman as he choked back the emotion in his voice.

“I was cheered up when I thought we got [the win] with the white flag, and then the caution is out and I had to refocus. I watched A.J. [Allmendinger] nail restarts in the Cup race [in 2023] and knew that if I want to be at this level, I had to do the same,” he continued. “We did that … and I thought I cut off turn seven enough, but he somehow got below me … and it was on from there.

“It was full contact – Sam didn’t do anything egregious; it was hard racing – but as close as we were to the line it still hurts. I said I wouldn’t cry, and I’m not going to cry, but man … I really wanted that.”

Allgaier, Josh Bilicki, Aric Almirola, and Sammy Smith closed the top 10.

The drama at the front of the field late was nearly trumped by the drama on the playoff cut line coming to the finish, too, after Love had to pit before the overtime restart because he was short on fuel.

Love took on four tires at that point and restarted 24th, but fought back to 19th at the checkered flag to earn the final berth into the next playoff round by two points.

Mayer’s win, combined with Allgaier’s seventh-place finish and 18 stage points lifting the veteran above the cut line, meant that van Gisbergen was the first driver out despite his third-place finish.

Creed, Herbst, and Kligerman also saw their championship dreams come to an end as well.

Mayer will lead the remaining playoff contenders into the Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway on Saturday, Oct. 19. Broadcast coverage of the Ambetter Health 302 is slated for 7:30 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.