MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 13, 2023) – Sam Mayer has speed. That is undeniable.
What he needs in 2023 is consistency, and veteran Mardy Lindley is there to provide that for the 19-year-old second-year driver at JR Motorsports. The two will campaign the No. 1 Accelerate Professional Talent Solutions Chevrolet in the full NASCAR Xfinity Series program this season.
In his first year at JRM and his first season as a NASCAR Xfinity Series crew chief, Lindley sees his season with the 19-year-old driver clearly.
"The goal this year is to get Sam in Victory Lane," the veteran crew chief and former driver said. "That's the No. 1 goal for us right now. He was close a couple of times last year, so it's about putting all the pieces together to finish races strong."
In truth, Mayer has always been very quick, speed-wise. As in most of life, it's the little things that make or break a day's outing on the race track. Lindley was Mayer's crew chief in the NASCAR ARCA Menards Series, and he has seen this play out there. The situation that Mayer is in for his second full-time NXS campaign, is remarkably similar to the one he was in with Lindley in the feeder series.
"His confidence and experience is what sticks out in my mind," Lindley said of his young charge. "The two years with Sam in ARCA…the first year we had some success and the second year, he really got going and won a bunch of races. I think it's from being a year older, having more confidence and knowing what he is doing. That's experience."
That bodes well, Lindley said, for an uptick in performance in 2023.
"It's too early to tell, but history has a way of repeating itself," he said. "I've seen the same results the first year I had him, and the second year he got turned around and cleaned up and got his races going to where he could finish them off.
"It's my belief that something like that will happen this year. It's a little tougher than an ARCA situation, but he did race against Ty Gibbs, and he's the current NXS champion. He went wheel-to-wheel with him every weekend with no problem and got the better of him many times."
Lindley is new to JR Motorsports after stints at other teams, most recently KBM in the Truck Series. His team at JRM consists of car chief Pat Martin, with whom Lindley has worked for several years. Martin was with Lindley at GMS (now Legacy Motor Club) when Mayer was in the ARCA Menards Series and in the Craftsman Truck Series.
The race engineer is JRM veteran Aedan McHugh, with Josh Lewis as the second engineer and tire specialist. Andrew Beason is the front-end mechanic, while Gregg Buchanan is the underneath mechanic. Mayer's spotter this year will be veteran Kevin Hamlin.
In his first season with the team, Lindley is high on JRM as an organization. "JRM is very organized, they build fast cars with great people," he said. "It's a really great place to work. People go out of their way to help you."
One of those is Mike Bumgarner, now the director of competition for the team. Bumgarner has held a variety of titles with the organization, including crew chief the past two seasons and director of race operations.
"He's very good, he's a very polite person, willing and able to help," Lindley said of Bumgarner. "I've seen a lot of people in his position, he's got a lot on him, but I think he's the man for the job."
Lindley has earned a reputation as being one of the best at bringing young drivers along, thanks to his success in the driver-development aspect of motorsports. That's part of his strengths as a crew chief, he said.
"It's just being able to take things that are at my disposal, things that I learned, and get the very best out of the information that I've been given," he said. "I think that's the biggest thing. It's hard to say with young drivers, because in my mind, they can either do it or they can't. You can't force someone to win a race, can't force them to drive. They have to be able to do it on their own. Just being able to take the information, the setups, read through them and being able to come up with something that suits the driver that I'm working with is probably one of my biggest strengths."
Lindley's history in the sport is unquestioned. His father, Butch Lindley, was one of the most successful short-track racers of the 1970s and 1980s, and that's how he got his start in the sport.
"Watching my dad race all those years is how I got started in it," Lindley said. "He was a NASCAR driver. From the time I was born they raced as many as 80 or 90 times a year. If I wasn't with my parents at a racetrack somewhere I was with my grandparents at a racetrack."
Since then, Lindley has been part of the NASCAR scene in many different iterations. As a driver, he competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, NASCAR's Southeast Series and the X-1 Hooter's Pro Cup Series.
"I drove until the end of 2006, and then I started working in Charlotte in 2007," Lindley said. "I spent three or four years with Ricky Stenhouse's ARCA team the first year and then three years with Greg Biffle on the Cup team at Roush Fenway Racing."
In 2012, Lindley moved to the driver development area, tutoring young drivers such as Kyle Larson, Dylan Kwasniewski, Harrison Burton, Mayer, Kyle Benjamin and former JRM driver Zane Smith.
As for the 2023 season, Lindley has some firm goals in mind with Mayer and the No. 1 Accelerate Professional Talent Solutions team.
"A great season would have to be making the Championship 4 and winning at Phoenix, right?," he said with a grin. "Expectations are getting Sam to Victory Lane, cleaning up some of the mistakes he made last year as a rookie, cleaning his races up and finishing strong. If people see improvement in him, him making progress…that's what we're here to do."