MOORESVILLE, N.C. (June 21, 2021) - It seems like Sam Mayer has been racing for JR Motorsports since he was a kid.
That's because he has.
On Sunday, one day after his 18th birthday, the young Wisconsin native will step into the No. 8 Tire Pros Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s NASCAR Xfinity Series team and take his racing career another step forward.
"I still can’t wrap my head around this," the soon-to-be-18-year-old said recently. "I'm so grateful because not many people my age get this opportunity. I'm going to be jumping in an Xfinity car when I’m 18 and one day old. That is such a weird feeling. I'm so excited for it and blessed for this opportunity."
It's an opportunity he's been working toward for most of his life. His father, Scott, is a former open-wheel and sports car driver, and Wisconsin is known as a hotbed for up-and-coming racing talent. It certainly played out that way for Sam, and one of the steps on the ladder he's currently climbing came at JR Motorsports.
The young driver was on the path to open-wheel racing at one point, winning go-kart races and championships before being bitten by the stock-car bug, and once that happened, he moved into U.S. Legend Car competition, the traditional path forward in NASCAR.
In 2017, after a full slate of Legend Car competition, Mayer dipped a toe in the Late Model ranks. He won three races and earned 13 top-10 finishes before capping the season with a fifth-place finish in the Myrtle Beach 400—a race won by soon-to-be Late Model teammate Josh Berry.
For the 2018 season, Mayer moved to JRM's Late Model program and put together a solid season, winning three races and amassing seven top-five and 17 top-10 finishes in 23 starts. The following season, Mayer ran twice for JRM, winning the prestigious Bobby Isaac Memorial at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway and finishing sixth in the other start.
That 2019 season also saw Mayer become the youngest NASCAR champion in history when he won the K&N Pro Series East title at the age of 16. In 12 starts, he won four times and finished outside the top 10 in just one of them.
He'll drive the No. 8 Chevrolet for the remainder of the season after Berry earned a victory, four top-five and six top-10 finishes in 12 starts so far this year. Berry, who has driven for JRM in the Late Model ranks since 2010 with occasional appearances in the NXS cars, earned the ride for the first half of the season after claiming the NASCAR Weekly Series title in 2020 with a dominant 27-victory season.
Mayer's ascension to the No. 8 ride was in place before Berry got the call, and Mayer had to wait for his 18th birthday to be eligible, and Mayer understands the hue and cry over the way things worked out.
"I see a lot of people who don’t really know the business side of racing," Mayer said. "I see on Twitter a lot of people saying, 'Josh deserves that car...' Obviously, Josh deserves the car because he's already won a race this year, but I'm excited for this opportunity.
"My turning 18 halfway through the year gave him the opportunity to get in and do half a season as a short-track racer. I ran Late Models with him in 2018 and 2019, and we had a really good relationship, and that kind of sparked this idea. He’s used every ounce of the opportunity JRM has given him, and seeing his NASCAR career kind of take off has been really cool."
As for his emergence in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Mayer knows the challenges he'll face beginning at Pocono. He'll have the ARCA race on the big 2.5-mile triangular track as a warmup.
"Overall, I'm pretty confident in what I can do and JR Motorsports has performed very well there in years past," Mayer said. "They have a good package there. Last year in the ARCA car was my first experience there and we only had five minutes of practice, so I got thrown right in with the wolves. I think we ended up third, which is really good for my first time there. Hopefully we can do that in the ARCA car this year just to get seat time because I"ve only done one oval race this season."
Mayer has run three NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races so far this season, two on road courses at Daytona and COTA and the other at Richmond, and earned a pair of top-10 finishes. Other than that, he's not done a ton of racing in 2021.
"I haven't really done much this year," he said. "I've run seven races on road courses, mostly in the Trans-Am series, and then I did a couple of road-course races in the Truck Series. My only oval race this year has been Richmond and I ended up ninth. Obviously, everyone else has the advantage on the ovals this year, but I've got them on the road courses. Hopefully, when we go road racing at Road America in the 8 car, I think I can win that one."
That’s a big change from the past several seasons.
"In years past, I'd be racing the truck one weekend, the ARCA car the next week and the Trans-Am car the week after that," Mayer said. "I haven't run any ARCA this year. I want to do more races, and obviously, running 17 more races for JRM, I'm going to get my feet wet this year."
Mayer has always carried a confidence beyond his years, and on the cusp of driving JRM's No. 8 car for Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Taylor Moyer, that confidence is increasing.
"The success they've (the No. 8 team) had...they've run up front in every race except for one I think," Mayer said. "They have performed each week. At Daytona, they were up front, top-five cars all weekend. Then he (Berry) goes to Martinsville and that just explodes.
"JRM is one of the best teams to be with right now because Chevrolet is really on fire right now. If Hendrick Motorsports is doing well, JRM is going to be doing well too. We love to see that."
Despite not being able to race in the NXS until this week, Mayer has been busy getting up to speed as much as he can.
"Being with the team as much as I can will help a ton, just based off the personnel and the communication as a team," he said. "Obviously, with no practice or qualifying at most of these races, the team has to have the car right when we load up and go. I will have 16 or 17 races with them, so that will definitely give me the seat time I need."
Mayer knows he has to hit the ground running, too.
"I have to be prepared 100 percent," he said. "If I have any kind of uncertainty about it, it’s going to blow up in my face. I've sat in the car a bunch, we poured my insert last week. I've been talking to Justin (Allgaier) a lot, because he's been doing this forever, and he has done some Cup stuff too. Talking to him has helped me learn as a driver and that learning curve is going to be a lot less steep because I have all these good people around me."
Mayer's journey to the top levels of NASCAR is nearly complete, and the biggest step he’s taken thus far is at hand...the day after he turns 18 years old.