- Name
- Sam Mayer
- Birth Date
- June 26, 2003
- Hometown
- Franklin, Wisc.
Sam Mayer returns for the 2023 season as driver of the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The 19-year-old Mayer capped his first full-time season with JRM in 2022 with 11 top-five and 19 top-10 finishes along with his first career pole in the spring race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Franklin, Wis. native additionally qualified for the NXS Playoffs for the first time in his career, finishing the season seventh in the championship points.
Rolling into his second full-time season, Mayer will reunite with crew chief Mardy Lindley, who is new to the JRM roster, but not to the driver of the No. 1. The duo has racked up over 15 victories together and earned championships in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series (2019) and the ARCA Menards Series (2020). Lindley will take over the lead on the No. 1 Chevrolet as Taylor Moyer moves over to guide the No. 8 of Josh Berry in 2023.
Mayer, the son of former Indy Car and road racing star Scott Mayer, has a successful history with JRM. A 2018 alumnus of the organization’s Late Model program, Mayer won his first CARS Late Model Stock Car race at Wake County Speedway and earned seven top-five and 17 top-10 finishes in 23 starts, resulting in a fifth-place finish in CARS LMSC points with the organization. Additionally, Mayer added two victories in NASCAR Whelen All-American Series competition at the legendary Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway and earned the prestigious Bojangles Summer Shootout Series title in the U.S. Legend Car Pro Division at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Mayer’s start came at the ripe age of 4 in the go-kart ranks in his home state of Wisconsin. He won several races and regional series titles before moving to the national series at the age of 10. That season, the young driver raced in three national karting series, winning the United States Pro Kart Series and finishing second in both the Route 66 Race Series and the World Karting Manufacturer’s Cup Series driving for Merlin Karts of Italy and Franklin Motorsports of Wisconsin.
In 2017, Mayer ran a full slate of U.S. Legend Car Series events, winning the U.S. Legend Car Winter Heat Championship, the Summer Shootout and U.S. Legend Car Asphalt Nationals. Also in 2017, he entered the Late Model ranks and won three times, at South Carolina’s Anderson Motor Speedway and Greenville Pickens Speedway, with 13 top-10 finishes. In November, he finished fifth in the prestigious Myrtle Beach 400 at Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Speedway.
Mayer leveraged his Late Model prowess into a place on national stage when he joined GMS Racing to compete in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, ARCA Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Running the full 2019 schedule in the K&N Pro Series East, Mayer scored four wins, 11 top fives and 11 top 10s en route to a championship that made him the youngest champion in any NASCAR series at the age of 16 years, three months and eight days.
In 2020, Mayer turned even more heads when he drove to his first career NCTS victory at Bristol Motor Speedway in only his sixth series start. Add in a combined 11 wins across all three ARCA Menards Series’ en route to the Sioux Chief Showdown championship and the ARCA Menards Series East championship, and Mayer was poised for a robust return to JRM in 2021. He ran 17 races in the team’s No. 8 Chevrolet, splitting time with teammate Berry in the car.
In 2022, Mayer, in his first full-time season with JRM, added a Dash 4 Cash win to his list of accomplishments at Richmond Raceway in the spring and scored a career-best runner-up finish at Talladega Superspeedway in the fall. In that race, Mayer led off Turn 4 coming to the checkered but lost out on a last-second lunge by eventual winner AJ Allmendinger.
Mayer is the second driver from the JRM Late Model pipeline to return to the organization for NXS competition, joining 2017 NXS champion and current Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron.