Sam Mayer saved the best for last as he made a three-wide pass on Justin Allgaier and Sage Karam on the final lap to win Saturday’s (July 29) NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Road America. This is Mayer’s first career Xfinity Series win coming in his 71st career start.
In the second restart of NASCAR Overtime, Mayer restarted third. Allgaier who had dominated the race slipped up and lost the lead to Karam, who then went wide in turn 13 giving the lead to Mayer. Allgaier spun, Karam later drove off into the grass and Mayer held off Parker Kligerman on the final lap to win the race.
Kligerman finished second, a career best for him in the Xfinity Series. Austin Hill retook the regular season points lead by finishing third, while Karam scored a career-best Xfinity finish of fourth. Riley Herbst managed to come back from two crashes to finish fifth.
Josh Berry and Kaz Grala finished sixth and seventh, while Wisconsin-born Josh Bilicki scored a Xfinity Series best in eighth. AJ Allmendinger and Brandon Jones rounded out the top 10.
“It feels so good to get that first win, to get that monkey off your back,” Mayer told NBC. “It feels so good, I felt it all day, I felt if I can do this one, I can do anything. We came here today and did that.”
Allmendinger led the field of 38 cars to the green flag and led until lap 6 when Allgaier first took the lead. Katherine Legge, making her first start since 2018, stopped on track to bring out the caution at lap 10.
A scary crash in turn 1 brought out the caution on lap 20 when Chandler Smith lost his brakes; he turned left into the wall in an effort to slow the car down, and found himself a frightening wreck. This caution brought the end to stage one and gave the stage win to Allgaier.
With 16 laps to go, John Hunter Nemechek went off track and ripped the splitter off the car. Hill and Herbst also got lost in the incident, going off track and spinning. This brought out the caution flag and led to a one-lap shootout to end stage two. Allgaier held off the challenge of Custer to win the stage.
Another scary accident with Alex Labbe in turn 1 brought out the sixth caution of the race after something broke on the car and forced it straight into the turn 1 tire barrier. A restart with 3 laps to go saw Sammy Smith, Allmendinger, and Custer all crash in turn 5 and forced the race to overtime.
Connor Mosack was leaking fluid on the track and stopped in turn 5 to bring out the caution and red flag as NASCAR had to clean the track.
With a two-lap shootout to decide the win, Allgaier, who had led 42 of the first 47 laps, cleared the field into turn 1. In turn 5, Karam took the lead after a bobble from Allgaier. Mayer was clear to second after a three-wide battle in turn 6, and Mayer later picked off Karam to cruise to his maiden Xfinity Series victory.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series races next at Michigan Speedway on Saturday (August 5). You can watch the race on NBC at 3:30 p.m. ET.
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