“Everyone in this series sucks. There’s nobody worth anything past 10th place, and it’s atrocious. I hate it. It’s annoying. Just gotta be better. Everyone just crashes at the end of these races, and it just doesn’t make sense to me. We cannot go another 10 laps without hitting each other. It was a clean race, all race, and at the end of these races, everyone just loses their minds, and it’s pathetic.”
That was Sam Mayer, who finished 24th in the No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet, after running amongst the lead pack for most of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Mayer’s comments, made to Frontstretch haven’t been well received by fans, drivers, and analysts who feel those comments were downright disrespectful to the Haas driver’s competition.
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“If you paid attention, from 12th to 20th last night, them boys were battling. That’s a whole another group of guys that were battling their own race,” said Tommy Baldwin on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. “I think what Sam meant was, yes, he needed to do a better job getting through those guys. And there’s going to be some other guys that were up there that didn’t pit, right, that were going to be way slower. But don’t get out and bash your competitors when I think it’s your fault.”
Baldwin defended the NOAPS garage after an exciting race that Corey Day won to make it two wins in a row.
In the final stage, multiple cautions fell, and the pack was divided into those on newer tires and those who stayed out for track position. Mayer was one of the first to go onto the new set and ended up behind several cars that were on old tires on the final restart.
As is custom, restarts are chaotic. For Mayer, who was amongst the lead pack for most of the restarts, starting in the middle of the pack seemed a bit of a challenge. A kerfuffle ahead of him caused one of the cars to brake-test the Haas driver, who made contact with the car ahead.
That contact caused him some sort of damage as sparks flew from the underbody of his Haas Chevrolet as he peeled onto pit road. He came out a lap down and ended 24th, a lap behind the leaders. He exited his car and smashed his hand onto the road to release some of the frustration. That rage release clearly wasn’t enough as he continued to vent to the media.
Freddie Kraft, the spotter for Toyota driver Dean Thompson in Charlotte, believed that it was Mayer’s fault for not being able to clear those on older tires. Kraft asked former driver and current analyst Jeff Burton, aka ‘The Mayor,’ about Mayer’s antics, and Burton too wasn’t willing to side with the Haas driver.
“I saw the wreck cuz I was there watching them, but I’m not 100% sure what all happened. So it’s hard for me to say,” Burton said. But I do think you have to be careful when you get out, and you have a blanket, ‘All these people back here suck.’ Well, you’re going to race with them next week. You just be a little careful.”
Burton’s response is one that echoes the same sentiment that multiple personalities have shared about Cup driver Carson Hocevar. ‘You don’t need to have friends, but you don’t want to have enemies.’ For Hocevar, too, it’s been more his social media interactions and behavior that have led to calls for him to be more respectful.
Mayer’s comments were along similarly disrespectful lines, and when a driver does that, they cannot go ahead and hope that they will get help from those driving around him if and when the situation arises.
Mayer belittled everyone below tenth, but the problem is, he isn’t too far off from 10th place in the championship leaderboard. Mayer is 6th with 2235 points. Parker Retzlaff is the 10th-place driver with 2168 points. That difference is only 67 points. Not too much to be proud of or to be comfortable defending with four races to come.
And that is exactly why ‘The Mayor’ has a warning for Mayer, who will be driving the No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet next year.
“If you are behind 10th, you don’t have a whole lot to lose,” Burton said. “So, you got to be careful what you say about those guys.”
Burton warns Mayer of the consequences to come if the Haas driver is battling anyone who is ranked lower than tenth over the next couple of races. If any of those drivers want to show their disgust towards Mayer’s comments, Mayer may end up in the bracket he has created before the season ends.