What else can Franklin driver do after sweep?
It's easy to pick.
He's too young. Too inexperienced. He didn't work his way up through the sport the right way, by wrenching on his own cars. He came from money, and that's everything that's wrong with racing.
Sure, he looks good on the track, but it's all about the equipment and the crew chief and the team. And besides, most of his wins have come against weaker competition.
“You're always going to have those keyboard warriors out there, but you've just got to use that as fuel in your fire,” Sam Mayer said late Thursday after the biggest night of his racing career. “You've just got to keep your head up and know that you have a lot of people supporting you.
“Tonight, I don't know what you could possibly say that's bad. Winning two races in the span of one night is a feat in itself.”
The 17-year-old from Franklin scored his first NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series victory in his seventh start in the division and then backed that up with a dominating performance in the ARCA Menards Series to leave with two trophies after 400 laps around Bristol Motor Speedway, the tough Tennessee half-mile.
That's not a bad way to cap a week in which JR Motorsports announced it would take Mayer into the Xfinity Series next season, once he turns 18 in June and becomes eligible.
Mayer has had a steering wheel in his hand since he was 4, and he won at a high level in go-karts and then legends cars.
His brief time in late models included a season with JRM, the team coowned by two-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., as well as a couple of wins in different series at different tracks, plus a runner-up finish in the prestigious World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing in Florida.
Mayer is a part of Chevrolet's young driver development program. He already had the help of industry veteran Lorin Ranier, who connects drivers with teams and helps them advance. He's always been in great equipment and always enjoyed the benefit of a challenging kart track that includes part of the long, winding driveway to his parents' home.
And he's always been appreciative. Before Mayer got to GMS Racing, the team had won a truck series championship – with hands-on, secondgeneration Wisconsin racer Johnny Sauter in 2016 – and it has won 27 races in the not-quite four years since. Together they claimed the K&N East title convincingly last year, and this season's statistics are better. They've won five of six starts in the two regional series that replaced K&N and five of 12 races on the ARCA Menards Series national schedule (counting two ARCA East/national combined races).
Yes, the competition will get tougher. Much tougher.
And no, Mayer can't count flawless performances like the one GMS had in the truck race Thursday or a car so capable of storming through traffic the way he did after he absent-mindedly pitted in the ARCA race.
We know what Mayer can do with a good car, but can he help his team make a bad car better?
We've all seen phenoms flame out. More challenging tests lie ahead. Expectations are growing. Pressure will build.
Heck, Mayer woke up Friday morning knowing he's essentially in limbo for the first half of next season, before he can join JRM.
“Having a night like this is a statement that I am ready and that everybody that believed in me, they know I'm ready and we can go into Xfinity racing and compete for wins and then in 2022 we can compete for the championship,” Mayer said, his voice trembling and his eyes watering.
“So I'm just grateful to everyone that's behind me. It's just hard to think that this is happening.”
What else do you want him to say? What else would you have him do?