April 13, 2024 | By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service

Sam Mayer beats Ryan Sieg in Xfinity Series photo finish at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas — In a race decided by less than the length of a Texas hot chili pepper, JR Motorsports driver Sam Mayer pulled off a last lap pass of veteran Ryan Sieg to claim his first victory of the season Saturday in the Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Officially, the margin of victory was .002-second as Mayer’s No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and Sieg’s No. 39 Ryan Sieg Racing Ford crossed the finish line door-to-door, bumper-to-bumper – the cars so close officials took a brief extra look to formally declare Mayer the winner. It was Mayer’s first win of the year and fifth of his career.

It would have been Sieg’s first win in 342 career starts in the series.

“That’s absolutely unreal,” the 20-year old Mayer said, shaking his head after climbing out of his car. “This team, the amount of adversity we’ve had to fight this entire year so far and to come to a mile-and-a-half that I want to say I’m good at, but it took a lot.

“It took every ounce of me for me to do that today.”

Sieg led 17 of the final 18 laps and raced off to the front on a pair of late race restarts in the closing 20 laps of the 200-lap race on the 1.5-mile Texas high banks. With nine laps remaining Sieg held a 1.2-second advantage over Mayer. But Mayer cut into that margin with each lap, trailing by only .25-second with two laps remaining and then catching Sieg’s car on the back stretch on the final lap. They exchanged the lead briefly, racing door-to-door and then Sieg pulled alongside as they took the checkered flag in a photo finish – the closest ever for an Xfinity Series race at Texas.

“Awe, it sucks,” said an obviously disappointed Sieg, who has two other career runner-up finishes. “We had a really good car. I just got tight, so tried to change my lines, do everything. I saw him coming and I did all I could do and at the end I was just trying to run him up into the wall to try to win the race. We were so close. This sucks.

“I’ve been second before. Too many times. But this is a good thing, means we’re running where we need to be in the top-five.

“Just got to keep fighting, we’re right there, just got to keep it up,” he added. “We’ll have it in Victory Lane here shortly.”

All the late race drama came at the expense of veteran Justin Allgaier, who led a race best 117 laps and swept both stage victories, but ultimately finished third in the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. It was disappointing DeJa’Vu for Allgaier, who a year ago led a dominating 133 of the 200 laps only to finish fifth.

A.J. Allmendinger finished fourth in the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet – a huge rally for the perennial championship contender after he missed his pit stall during the Stage 1 caution, which put him back in the field and forced him to race through the field – again.

Reigning Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer, who started from outside the front row, was a top five car all day and finished fifth in the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Custer now trails championship leader Chandler Smith – who finished 15th – by 19 points in the standings.

Two-race winner, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill finished sixth, followed by Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ryan Truex, JR Motorsports Sammy Smith, polesitter, RCR’s Jesse Love and Anthony Alfredo, who earned his third top-10 of the season in the Our Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet.

With the win Mayer not only course-corrects a rough start to the 2024 season – he suffered DNFs in three of the first four races – but he earns the coveted $100,000 prize from Xfinity as the Dash 4 Cash winning driver.

He’ll compete against Sieg, Allgaier and Allmendinger for the big Dash 4 Cash check again next week at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

It was a rally not just for driver but for his JR Motorsports team. The perennial championship favorite has struggled early in the 2024 season – its four talented drivers not earning a top-five until last week at Martinsville. On Saturday, not only did the team – co-owned by Kelley Earnhardt Miller and her brother Dale Earnhardt Jr. – win the race but all four cars finished in the top-13 and three of the four drivers (also Brandon Jones) led laps.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway where it will race in the Ag-Pro 300 (4 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Jeb Burton is the defending race winner.


NASCAR Xfinity Series Race Number 8
Race Results for the Andy's Frozen Custard 300 - Saturday, April 13, 2024
Texas Motor Speedway - Fort Worth, TX - 1.5 - Mile Paved

Total Race Length - 200 Laps - 300. Miles

Provided by NASCAR Statistics - Saturday, 4/13/2024 @ 04:11 PM Eastern

Fin Str Car Driver Team Laps Stage 1 Pos Stage 2 Pos Pts Status Tms Laps Playoff Pts
1 10 1 Sam Mayer Carolina Carports Chevrolet 200  10 41 Running 4 5 5
2 14 39 Ryan Sieg Sci Aps Ford 200 8 5 44 Running 1 17
3 6 7 Justin Allgaier BRANDT/TradeMark Nitrogen Chevrolet 200 1 1 54 Running 4 117 2
4 8 16 AJ Allmendinger Celsius Chevrolet 200 9 9 37 Running  
5 2 00 Cole Custer Andy's Frozen Custard Ford 200 5 2 47 Running 1 1
6 13 21 Austin Hill Global Industrial/Bennett Chevrolet 200 7 7 39 Running 1 25
7 7 20 Ryan Truex The Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 200 6  35 Running  
8 9 8 Sammy Smith Pilot Flying J Coffee Chevrolet 200  6 34 Running  
9 1 2 Jesse Love # Whelen Chevrolet 200  8 31 Running 1 1
10 12 5 Anthony Alfredo Botticelli Family Owned Chevrolet 200   27 Running  
11 3 19 Taylor Gray(i) Operation 300 Toyota 200   0 Running  
12 22 11 Josh Williams Alloy Employer Services Chevrolet 200   25 Running  
13 11 9 Brandon Jones Menards/Atlas Roofing Chevrolet 200 4 4 38 Running 2 2
14 23 28 Kyle Sieg RSS Racing Ford 200   23 Running  
15 4 81 Chandler Smith QuickTie Toyota 200 2  31 Running 1 26
16 18 51 Jeremy Clements First Pacific Funding Chevrolet 200   21 Running  
17 17 26 Corey Heim(i) Toyota Genuine Parts Toyota 200   0 Running  
18 33 97 Shane Van Gisbergen # Worldwide Express Chevrolet 200   19 Running  
19 15 18 Sheldon Creed Friends of Jaclyn Foundation Toyota 200   18 Running 1 2
20 27 38 Matt DiBenedetto Viking Motorsports Ford 200   17 Running  
21 25 44 Brennan Poole Prime Bites Brownie Chevrolet 200   16 Running  
22 29 31 Parker Retzlaff FUNKAWAY Chevrolet 200   15 Running  
23 20 15 Hailie Deegan # AirBox Ford 200   14 Running  
24 24 10 Daniel Dye(i) bproauto parts Chevrolet 200   0 Running  
25 16 48 Parker Kligerman Spiked Lite Coolers Chevrolet 200 10  13 Running 1 4
26 36 43 Ryan Ellis Eclipse Claims Consulting Chevrolet 199   11 Running  
27 5 98 Riley Herbst Monster Energy Ford 199 3 3 26 Running  
28 38 14 David Starr SHAR Ford 198   9 Running  
29 28 92 Josh Bilicki Milestone Chevrolet 198   8 Running  
30 37 35 Joey Gase Donate Life TX Chevrolet 198   7 Running  
31 31 42 Leland Honeyman # Distributor Wire & Cable Co Chevrolet 198   6 Running  
32 21 27 Jeb Burton State Water Heaters Chevrolet 197   5 Running  
33 30 07 Patrick Emerling Sesh Products Chevrolet 197   4 Running  
34 32 6 Garrett Smithley Trophy Tractor Inc. Chevrolet 197   3 Running  
35 26 29 Blaine Perkins AutoParkit.com Ford 197   2 Running  
36 19 91 Kyle Weatherman Tweaker Energy/DriveSmart Chevrolet 191   1 Accident  
37 34 4 Dawson Cram #  Chevrolet 191   1 Running  
38 35 66 Chad Finchum HART HVAC & Electric Ford 127   1 Suspension  

Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 22 Mins, 53 Secs. Average Speed: 125.977 MPH Margin of Victory: 0.002 Seconds

Stage 1 Top 10: 7, 81, 98, 9, 00, 20, 21, 39, 16, 48
Stage 2 Top 10: 7, 00, 98, 9, 39, 8, 21, 2, 16, 1

Caution Flags: 7 for 35 laps; Laps: 13-16 (#10 Spin Turn 2 [None]); 47-52 (Stage 1 Conclusion [92]); 81-84 (#42 Spin Turn 2 [92]); 92-97 (Stage 2 Conclusion [42]); 103-106 (#27 Incident Frontstretch [35]); 174-179 (#7, 42 Incident Turn 2 [51]); 185-189 (#15, 91 Incident Frontstretch [38]).

Lead Changes: 16 among 10 drivers; J. Love # 1; C. Smith 2-27; J. Allgaier 28-48; B. Jones 49; J. Allgaier 50-80; C. Custer 81; J. Allgaier 82-142; S. Mayer 143; S. Creed 144-145; A. Hill 146-170; J. Allgaier 171-174; S. Mayer 175; P. Kligerman 176-179; B. Jones 180; S. Mayer 181-182; R. Sieg 183-199; S. Mayer 200.

(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series

Next Race: April 20, 2024 - Talladega Superspeedway

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