Sometimes you're lucky. Sometimes you're good. In the case of Sam Mayer, he was both in Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series HyVee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway as he worked around Jesse Love, who slipped and slid through a patch of oil, for the race lead with 28 laps to go.
Once he assumed the lead, Mayer had the skills and car underneath him to pull away from the field on the final restart of the race, which came with 16 laps to go. Mayer would go on to score his first win of the 2025 season by a margin of 3.289 seconds over Love.
Race Results: HyVee 250 at Iowa Speedway
Ross Chastain came home in the third position, driving the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, and he was followed by Connor Zilisch, who won Stage 1 but came up short of his fourth straight NASCAR Xfinity Series win with a fourth-place result, and Harrison Burton bolstered his Playoff hopes with a fifth-place finish in the No. 25 AM Racing Ford.
But the story was Mayer.
The win, which is the eighth of Mayer's 139-race NASCAR Xfinity Series career, is the first-ever win for the Haas Factory Team, which launched in the offseason following the closure of the former championship-winning Stewart-Haas Racing team. For the 22-year-old racer, who had three runner-up finishes this season, including last weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this win meant a lot.
"I mean, this one is everything, right here," Mayer said in his victory interview on The CW. "This one's for all of the guys here at Audibel, there are a lot of people in the stands -- the Audibel people. So, it's really cool to get a win in front of them. First win for Haas Factory Team, that's awesome. This car was as fast as Xfinity Mobile all day long. We tried to botch it on pit road, but we didn't. I can't believe it. This is one of the most special wins I have."
Mayer, who collected the first seven wins of his NASCAR Xfinity Series career while driving for JR Motorsports, the strongest team in the series, bet on himself and Haas Factory Team as he decided to change teams heading into the 2025 season.
The driver and his team have bonded, and forged an incredible energy together. Now, they've proven they can win together.
"These guys, they love me to death, and I love them to death. We're just some good old boys trying to go racing. So, this one feels great," Mayer said.
In order to have a chance to pounce on Love for the lead late in the race, Mayer had to battle back from a miscue as he was trying to reach his pit stall in a pit sequence under yellow between Stages 1 and 2. Mayer came into his pit stall with too much speed, and overshot his pit stall. After backing up into his stall, Mayer lost a ton of track position.
But the driver and his team kept their wits about them, and continued chasing the ultimate prize of the day, which was a win at Iowa Speedway. With Saturday's race win, Mayer has now captured wins at Iowa Speedway in back-to-back seasons in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
While Mayer was full of elation, Love, who saw the win literally slip from his grasp, was heartbroken as his car struggled on the first few laps of a green flag run, and he was never able to mount a challenge to Mayer once he lost the lead late in the race.
"I don't know why we couldn't fire off. I felt like I was on ice skates for the first five laps of a run," Love explained. "And yeah, that restart was obviously jumbled up, and he was playing the games he needed to play, not that it was a bad thing. But he did it perfect, and made it hard for me to launch. And then once I lost the lead because of the oil on the top lane, I felt like it was going to be tough to get it back."
Even though he knew it would be tough, Love was still mentally prepared to do whatever it took to get the race win. Unfortunately, he couldn't get to the back bumper of Mayer.
"I felt like if I could stay close, I would have a shot to move him," Love said. "And for whatever reason, we just had no grip on the short run; it was a really weird sensation. So, yeah, just upset over it."
Carson Hocevar ended the day in the sixth position, driving the No. 11 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet in place of Josh Williams, who was released by the team earlier this week.
Sheldon Creed, Mayer's Haas Factory Team teammate came home in seventh, and he was followed by Ryan Sieg, who like Harrison Burton, helped his bid for a Playoff spot with an eighth-place run.
Rookie of the Year contender Carson Kvapil finished ninth, and Christian Eckes, another rookie contender, rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.
While it was a good day for Sieg, who rebounded from an early spin, and Harrison Burton, it was a rough outing for Jeb Burton, Harrison's cousin.
Jeb came into the day 10 points above the Playoff cutline, and had Harrison and Sieg in hot pursuit behind him. After a rough race, which saw Jeb finish in the 29th position, Harrison leap-frogged his way into the Playoff cutline, and he now holds a 17-point advantage over Sieg, who is the new first driver outside of the Playoffs cutline with four races left until the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs begin.
While Zilisch didn't nab his fourth consecutive win, which would have made him the third driver to ever accomplish the feat in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, he did take over the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular season point lead, which is particularly impressive as he missed the event at Texas Motor Speedway earlier this year due to a back injury he sustained at Talladega Superspeedway.
Justin Allgaier, who has held the point lead over the last 17 races, suffered through a subpar day, and finished 16th, which allowed Zilisch to tie him atop the point standings. By virtue of having five wins this season, Zilisch holds the tie-breaker and is the new point leader with four races left until the Playoffs begin.
Next up for the NASCAR Xfinity Series is the Mission 200 at The Glen from Watkins Glen International on Saturday, August 9. That race will be televised on The CW with the broadcast coverage set to kick off at 3:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the race.
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