LONG POND, Pa. — Sam Mayer lined up on the front row with his teammate Sheldon Creed on his back bumper set for a green-white-checkered restart to end Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Pocono Raceway.

But a split-second decision by Creed to jump to Mayer’s left allowed Justin Allgaier to storm ahead, leaving the Haas Factory Team duo in the dust as Allgaier rolled to his fifth win of the season.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Pocono

In fourth and fifth, respectively, Mayer and Creed were left to wonder what could have been.

“I’m glad I have sunglasses on right now because I’m ready to bawl my eyes out,” Mayer said.

Mayer and Creed lined up as the first two cars on the inside lane in a restart at Lap 98 of 100. One restart earlier, the duo leaned left and stayed together for a strong push into Turn 1. Creed anticipated Mayer would do the same on the final re-fire. Mayer opted against so he could have a better arch into the corner.

“I was hoping we’re gonna do the same thing again,” Creed said. “Sam did a really good job the prior restart, and just as soon as we got to the line, he started leaning left, just to keep both of us from kind of getting put three (wide), and then that made it a lot easier for me just to commit to him. Whoever was behind me, they can get to my right all they want, but I just didn’t want to be three, and he did a really good job that time. And then we got to the line there on that last restart, and the 19 (Brent Crews) was already pushing me, so I felt like I kind of had to turn left because I didn’t want to be three-wide.

“And unfortunately I kind of took his (Mayer’s) opportunity away, and I was trying to get myself on, and then just landed super loose down there into 1 and slid up the race track. You kind of hate to do that when you’re around your teammates on restarts, but at the same time, trying to give myself an opportunity as well.”

Even if it doesn’t ease the pain of defeat, that logic helped Mayer reconcile any blame or criticism he may have wanted to place on Creed, who was going for the victory just like he was.

“Door numbers aside, you’ve gotta put yourself in a spot to try to win the race, and the 00 was even for first going into Turn 1, so I can’t fault him at all for it,” Mayer said. “I mean I probably wouldn’t have done it just because I know that the cars don’t handle very good on the bottom when you have that sort of an entry, and it happened to me on the second to last restart. That’s why the 7 (Allgaier) beat me is because I was shallow, so I knew that going down there is just shooting yourself in the foot. But I mean when you’re in the second lane, you have to do that, so it’s just kind of one of those deals.

“If I would have had a little bit of help, my lane would have won. He had help, his lane won, so it’s kind of just part of the racing at this race track. It’s so much fun, but just absolutely brutal sometimes.”

An eight-time winner in O’Reilly Auto Parts Series competition, Mayer is still seeking his first win of 2026 but now has top fives in three of his last four races, including consecutive fourth-place finishes at Nashville Superspeedway and Pocono.

Those stats are good, particularly as he leaves Pocono ninth in points, up two from where he entered. But it does little to make Saturday’s near-miss feel better in the immediate aftermath.

“It’s just part of it. It’s so hard,” Mayer said. “You look at the Cup Series and you see 30 guys that can go out there and win. Well, I mean, you’ve got 15 guys that can win each week in this series, so the intensity level is just as high as the Cup Series. I mean, you see the 88, William (Byron), he obviously is a very talented race-car driver, really good on Sundays, and he comes to Saturdays, and he runs second, third as well.

“So I mean, the intensity level is just as high, and that’s what makes racing special and winning special because you know that no matter what series you’re in, it’s rewarding to win. And I want to do that really, really badly. So it’s hard to balance that, but at the end of the day, you’ve just got to go execute and be better and make the right choices, and have the cards fall your way, to be honest with you, but that’s the love of racing.”