The first NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Iowa Speedway since 2019 didn’t disappoint.
In a short-track duel that took NASCAR overtime to decide, Sam Mayer held off Riley Herbst on Saturday to claim his second victory of the 2024 Xfinity Series season while denying Herbst the same.
In a classic example of short-track racing, Mayer and Herbst pushed each other extremely hard over the race’s final 20 laps, constantly driving side-by-side and giving each other no quarter. Mayer eventually made the pass with seven laps to go, but a caution for John Hunter Nemechek brought out the race’s final yellow flag and bunched the field up for a two-lap shootout.
Mayer used a strong run on the outside to clear Herbst on the exit of turn two and it was smooth sailing for the driver of the No. 1 JR Motorsports Camaro from there.
The win marks Mayer’s sixth in the last two seasons and his second of 2024. After a disastrous start to the season in which Mayer had just one top-10 over the first six races, he’s turned up the wick, earning seven top-fives in the last nine events on the Xfinity Series calendar.
Mayer led an impressive 47 laps en route to victory, but it was Chandler Smith who had the dominant car of the day. With the the 0.75 mile track in Richmond, Va. being the closest thing to a sister track for Iowa, many picked Smith as the favorite to win, as he had taken home the trophy at Richmond in March. While Smith led 131 laps, he was the victim of dirty air, which made Smith’s No. 81 car go from setting the pace to standing still in traffic. It was all Smith could do to muster up an eighth place finish. A good result to be sure, but disappointing on a day when the No. 81 team easily could’ve won.
Justin Allgaier led 14 laps in Saturday’s race, but a flat tire with 49 laps to go took Allgaier from ninth to a 30th place result. Pole-sitter Austin Hill also seemed destined for a good day at Iowa, but a flat tire with 33 laps to go relegated Hill to the garage area in the blink of an eye, eventually resulting in a 29th-place finish.
Then there’s the hottest driver on the circuit. After winning the last two Xfinity Series races at Portland and Sonoma, respectively, Shane van Gisbergen’s first venture to Iowa, which had already gotten off to a rocky start, worsened on Saturday. After crashing during practice on Friday, van Gisbergen’s would-be second-place starting spot for Saturday’s race – which would have been awarded based on the qualifying metric due to qualifying being canceled – was stripped away, putting him at the back of the pack. A crash on lap 88 prematurely ended van Gisbergen’s day, resulting in a 34th-place finish.
Truck Series title favorite Corey Heim finished third while Sammy Smith and Sheldon Creed rounded out the top-five. Cole Custer and Matt DiBenedetto finished sixth and seventh, respectively, with Chandler Smith, Ross Chastain and Daniel Dye rounding out the top-10.
Other notable finishers from Saturday’s Hy-Vee Perks 250 included Iowa native Brett Moffitt (18th), John Hunter Nemechek (27th), Jesse Love (31st), Brandon Jones (36th) and AJ Allmendinger (37th).
The Xfinity Series’ next race is scheduled for Saturday, June 22, at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H. The race will go green shortly after 3:30 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on USA Network, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.