Sam Mayer mentioned he thought he could have won a race or two already this season, but then he clarified.
“Should have won,” Mayer said with conviction. “Definitely should have won at least two, could have won probably four, maybe five.
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“A lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda in this sport for sure.”
Mayer is one of two promising young Wisconsin drivers fighting to turn possibilities into accomplishments as the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series moves beyond the season’s midpoint and toward the 12-driver, nine-race battle for the championship.
BRISTOL, TENNESSEE – APRIL 11: Parker Retzlaff, driver of the #99 FUNKAWAY Chevrolet, and Sam Mayer, driver of the #41 Audibel Chevrolet, race during the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Suburban Propane 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 11, 2026 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Matt Kelley/Getty Images)
Through 20 races, with three to go before points are reset for the Chase – the reshaped pseudo-playoff – Mayer sits 10th in the standings. He’s 66 points above 13th, giving him about a race’s worth of padding.
“We have done a lot of really impressive and great things and we’ve had speed at a lot of racetracks that we showed up at,” the 23-year-old from Franklin said. “And a lot of things just kind of didn’t go our way when they kind of needed to, but it wasn’t a lack of effort for sure.
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“I would give us, like, a B-minus overall. … We could have won by now, for sure. We just haven’t yet. So that’s the only thing knocking me down a little bit is just not getting a victory done yet.”
After a finish of eighth July 4 at Chicagoland Speedway, Mayer and the No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet crew have 10 top-10 finishes and five top-fives, plus two poles.
Mayer has won eight times since joining the series mid-2021, after he turned 18, but has gone 30 races without visiting victory lane. The drought of more than 11 months since Mayer won at Iowa Speedway is his longest since waiting 70 races for his first win.
Still, he has seen progress in himself as a driver this season.
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“I’ve gotten a lot better, more mature when it comes to speedway racing,” Mayer said. “All three speedway tracks [Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega] I felt like we had the capabilities of winning.
“Atlanta comes to mind. That was one of our best tracks and we went multiple laps down early because we had a tire get cut down because we got door-slammed on like, lap seven. It’s just stuff like that that’s kind of gotten in our way this year, but we came back and still finished top 10 after going three laps down.”
Under a different format, with three rounds of eliminations that set up a four-driver shootout in the finale, Mayer finished third in the championship in 2023 with JR Motorsports.
JOLIET, ILLINOIS – JULY 04: Sam Mayer, driver of the #41 Audibel Hear Better Connect Better Chevrolet, looks on prior to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Cuervo 300 at Chicagoland Speedway on July 04, 2026 in Joliet, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
With a little better execution and some good luck in place of bad, given a better understanding of fuel mileage issues the team has had, Mayer said, he could be in a position to challenge again.
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“I think the biggest thing to take from that is, we’ve learned all those hard lessons,” Mayer said.
“Going into the second half of the year into the Chase, we can take all those learning moments, and when everything resets, you’re only going to be, like, a race, race and a half behind the leader. If you execute what you need to do and have some good fortune, and the leaders have some misfortune, I mean, you could be right in the championship hunt within a couple of races.”
Parker Retzlaff is looking for his first win and first playoff berth
Sitting one spot ahead of Mayer in the standings is 23-year-old Rhinelander native Parker Retzlaff, who has another seven points between himself and 13th place.
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Retzlaff, in his first season with second-year Viking Motorsports, has consistently sprung surprises with smaller teams through his career. This year he turned heads by finishing a career-best second at EchoPark Speedway outside Atlanta.
“I don’t know if everyone really expected it just because of how new the whole team was and everything, but I think that for me and Danny [Efland, crew chief] and most of the team, we were kind of on the same page of what we expected to do with what we were given,” Retzlaff said.
Retzlaff and the No. 99 Chevrolet team have registered three top-five finishes and nine top-10s. While those numbers aren’t splashy, they’ve also been one of the most consistent teams in the garage with just three finishes outside the top 15.
After placing 16th in points in his first full season in 2023, Retzlaff has his first berth in the championship competition in his sights.
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Although Viking is a young organization and many of its members are relatively inexperienced, the team is affiliated with long-established Richard Childress Racing and its cars came from Kaulig Racing.
JOLIET, ILLINOIS – JULY 04: Parker Retzlaff, driver of the #99 FUNKAWAY Chevrolet, looks on prior to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Cuervo 300 at Chicagoland Speedway on July 04, 2026 in Joliet, Illinois. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
“I think that there’s just always little stuff we can build on,” Retzlaff said.
“I think we just need to keep doing what we’re doing now, but I think we need to just start spending a little bit more time on certain things, trying to get some more help from some of the shop guys … put a lot of effort in making cars the best we can [for] when we get to the Chase and knowing that we have to bring everything we can if we’re going to make a deep run.”
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The only pressure Retzlaff is feeling as the Chase approaches is from himself. He wants to qualify and then contend, and he wants desperately to win a race.
“Looking at what we’re racing against, how new the team is, everything like that, I don’t think it’s a failure [to not win in 2026],” he said. “I think that there’s a lot that the management, ownership, all my guys, everyone can be proud of.
“But I think that me personally, I want to win so bad that it will be a letdown that I’m going to have to wait another year.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How 2 young Wisconsin NASCAR drivers approach the O’Reilly title fight
