As the laps reached single digits, Sam Mayer reeled in leader Ryan Sieg. On the last lap, Mayer drove alongside Sieg, the two drag raced to the finish line and Mayer bested Sieg, in the second-closest finish in series history. to win the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday (April 13).
Mayer earned his first win of the 2024 season and the fifth of his career.
“That’s absolutely unreal,” Mayer happily told FOX Sports 1 on the frontstretch. “This Carolina Carports Chevrolet was certainly as fast as Xfinity internet. This team, with the adversity we had to fight this entire year so far and it’s come to a mile and a half that I want to say I’m good at but it took a lot. It took every ounce of me to do that today. So proud of my team, Mardy [Lindley] on top of the box, Kevin on top of the roof. He might’ve won that race because he told me the bottom in [turns] 3-4 was better so props to him.”
In his 342nd career start, Sieg wound up runner up, inches away from capturing his first Xfinity victory.
“It sucks,” Sieg said post-race. “We had a really good car, just kind of, I got tight. Tried to change my line to do different things and fell behind. I saw him coming, I was doing all I could do and then I was just trying to run him into the wall. Trying to win the race, you know what I mean, we’re so close. Just, this sucks.
“You only have finished second before too many times. But this is a good thing. We’re running where we need to be in the top five. Just got to clean up a few things and it’ll come. Thanks to Stewart-Haas and Matt Noyce. This team, we got to keep fighting. We’re right there. Just got to keep it up and we’ll have our SciAps Ford in victory lane here shortly. Just sucks, you know what I mean? We had a super fast car; just got tight and… it sucks.”
Sieg wheeled his No. 39 RSS Racing Ford to the front on the previous restart, passing Mayer for the lead.
Justin Allgaier won both stages, led the most laps and appeared headed for victory, yet he made contact with the lapped car of Leland Honeyman, sending Honeyman into the wall and bringing out the caution.
On the two subsequent restarts, Allgaier got shuffled back a few positions. He ended up third, not indicative of the race-winning speed in his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
AJ Allmendinger and Cole Custer rounded the top five in fourth and fifth, respectively. Austin Hill used a different pit strategy to come home sixth. Ryan Truex, Sammy Smith, pole sitter Jesse Love and Anthony Alfredo completed the top-10 finishers in seventh through 10th, respectively.
Until the caution for Honeyman after his contact with Allgaier, the only other cautions for incident were single-car spins from Daniel Dye and Jeb Burton, who also endured damage to his No. 27 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet.
Mayer and Sieg’s racecars came to life afterward as they battled for the lead after the Honeyman caution. Then, on the final restart, as Sieg drove away for several laps, Mayer caught him on the last lap and they ended up separated by 0.002 seconds.
Mayer not only took home the trophy but also won the first Dash 4 Cash, earning a $100,000 prize. Mayer, Sieg, Allgaier and AJ Allmendinger will compete for the second round of the Dash 4 Cash at Talladega Superspeedway.
Xfinity Results from Texas
After that exciting finish, the Xfinity Series next heads to Talladega for the Ag-Pro 300. It will take place on Saturday, April 20 at 4 p.m. ET with TV coverage provided by FOX.
Mark Kristl joined Frontstretch at the beginning of the 2019 NASCAR season. He is the site's ARCA Menards Series editor. Kristl is also an Eagle Scout and a proud University of Dayton alum.