Sam Mayer admits he hit Kyle Larson after 'mistimed' restart at Homestead-Miami

While Justin Allgaier walked away with the win, the big story out of the Xfinity Series race is about Sam Mayer and Kyle Larson. These two NASCAR drivers got caught up with one another on the final restart after a dominant day from Larson.

All afternoon, Sam Mayer chased Kyle Larson. He just couldn’t get close enough. No one could. Before the overtime restart, Larson had lapped all but four drivers on the track.

However, with the overtime, Larson was put into a vulnerable position. Mayer lined up behind him when he could have shared the front row together.

It appeared that Mayer got into Larson in the restart zone. That led to Larson checking up while Austin Hill and Justin Allgaier took off. Allgaier got the win. Larson was frustrated after the race. He said Mayer “slammed the s**t” out of him.

Sam Mayer talked about what happened afterward. Notice the lack of apology despite taking the blame for mistiming the restart.

“Yeah, I mean, I just mistimed it unfortunately and got to his bumper a little too early,” Mayer said. “He went really, really late in the box, just playing games. Like, that’s what you’ve got to do a this level to get the advantage but he just waited really long and I wasn’t kind of ready for him to wait that long. I was giddy to get going. But hey shoutout to all these boys at Haas Factory. They brought an Audibel Ford Mustang that was as fast as Xfinity Mobile. That’s all you can ask for at the end of the day.

“Any time that you’re finishing second, you’re super bummed out, that’s a good day. We’re gonna keep it going. We’re going to go back and hit the workbooks and the notebooks and try to get better because second really isn’t enough because we were a second-place car today. So, we want to be better.”

Kyle Larson pays for Sam Mayer’s mistake

It is funny that Kyle Busch was just talking about young drivers running everyone over. Perhaps he is right that there is no fixing the problem and this is just the way things are now. But I don’t buy into that.

Kyle Larson paid for Sam Mayer’s mistake tonight. Plain and simple. As Busch also said, Mayer has time and again shown that he is willing to wreck rather than win at times. He didn’t quite get to the level of wrecking this time around but it was close.

What I think has to happen in these situations is accountability. No, not from NASCAR. But Larson was right there on pit road next to Mayer. It didn’t appear either driver said anything to the other. You can’t let that happen. As a veteran and champion of the sport, Larson has to take that opportunity to teach Mayer a lesson.

I do not expect Larson to fight anyone in the pits. Forget that. But someone at some point has to grab a driver like Mayer or a Carson Hocevar or whoever it is and set them straight. Tell them, this is not how things are done and if you keep doing it, you won’t be around long.

Mistakes and mental errors are arguably the number one thing keeping Sam Mayer from driving in the Cup Series. We know he can win races at the Xfinity Series level. He also seems to lose his head at times. Mayer anticipated what he thought Larson was going to do instead of reacting to what Larson did. Now, they both lost the race and Mayer lost the Dash 4 Cash $100,000 prize.