FORT WORTH, Texas — A repeat winner was almost crowned in the Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 with Sam Mayer in the bright red No. 41 Andy’s-sponsored Haas Factory Team Ford Mustang leading the field to the green flag on the final restart of the afternoon.
Ultimately, Kyle Larson, subbing for Connor Zilisch in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, rocketed around the outside of Mayer into Turn 1 and set sail for the race victory. In the closing laps of the overtime restart, the 21-year-old was shuffled to a fifth-place finish.
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The Wisconsin native fought through early trouble, as the No. 41 car was one of multiple cars involved in a Stage 2 incident as the field got hung up in the frontstretch grass on a restart. Instead of focusing on the negative, Mayer shed light on just how good he thinks his Haas team is.
“We had every bit of adversity thrown at us today,” Mayer said post-race. “We had damage, we had to go to the back, we almost went a lap down under green because of it. So to come back and even have a shot at it, I mean, it shows how good this team is. This Haas Factory organization works really hard to give me good race cars. We probably weren’t the best today, but we certainly were right there in the mix, and I think we deserve to finish a little better.”
In the mix he was, battling Cup Series champion Larson in the closing laps. Despite the result in fifth place, Mayer believes that if he had a little more help on the fire-off of the restart, he could’ve potentially bested the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet at the end.
“I felt like I was better than (Larson) all day,” Mayer said. “I felt like he may have had the best car, but I outdrove him there towards the end a little bit, and the restart obviously didn’t go my way. So I felt like I belonged in that mix, and I felt like I did every decision right there at the end, and obviously, he just had better help on the last restart. That’s literally all it takes here.”
Mayer leaves the 1.5-mile track with his first top-five showing since the seventh race of his 2025 campaign, where he accomplished the same result at Martinsville Speedway. It was a welcome finish as the Xfinity Series is set to take a few weeks off before returning to competition on Memorial Day weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“It’s unbelievable,” Mayer said with a smile. “So like, the last four or five weeks have been pretty rough for the 41 car, and honestly, Haas Factory as a whole. So to come back with something new, we haven’t run this type of geometry in the front before, to do something new and not know how I was going to do it and not get practice to see how it goes, and to come out and have it go the right way. Feels really, really good, so I’m really proud, and I’m looking forward to Charlotte, for sure, because it’s going to be the same story.”