Coming off his second win of the Xfinity Series season, driver Sam Mayer had a little something on his mind. He hadn’t really been mentioned much as a potential candidate for one of the Cup Series seats that had or may come open, starting with the retirement of Martin Truex Jr.
And that didn’t sit well.
“Yeah, it kind of pisses me off, to be honest with you,” Mayer said after winning at Iowa. “I feel like we’ve proved ourselves a lot more. Like I’m dead serious. It makes me so mad that my name isn’t in more hats for race teams. So hopefully today kind of put my name in a couple of them. We’re working really hard. I want to go Sunday racing, obviously, one day.”
At least one veteran Cup Series driver thinks that might be a little premature. Mayer is just 21 years old at this point.
“I think that Sam Mayer just needs a little bit more time, a little bit more refined,” Denny Hamlin said on the Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin podcast. “But certainly he should be a prospect in the long run to race on Sundays. I know he said in the post-race presser that he aspires to race on Sundays, that’s what he’s here to do.
“The good news is he’s young enough… I mean he’s got tons of time and I wouldn’t rush it, because I think getting in the right situation matters. You just take the first thing that comes your way it sometimes leads to it being a bad look for you. But he’s got plenty of time to still go out there and win more races and that’s going to catch peoples’ eye. It does.”
Sam Mayer has certainly been proving he can drive.
He sits in 10th place in the Xfinity Series standings, but he has two wins already this season and seven top-five finishes. He’s been remarkably consistent, one of the key factors for any driver looking to move up.
Hamlin sympathized with the sentiment of being upset at not getting more looks.
“I guess you can kind of understand that. I mean this is his second win of the season,” Hamlin said. “I think he’s performed really good on the road courses. I think he has like three road course wins or something, which, that is a big part of our schedule nowadays.”
The elder statesman had some simple advice to Sam Mayer. Just keep plugging away.
“You’re not going to be just mediocre and then find yourself racing on Sundays,” he said. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep winning and the talk will pick itself up over time.”
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