After Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Pocono, Chandler Smith climbed out the car and immediately made his way to Sam Mayer and began shouting at him over an incident between them earlier in the race.
Mayer hadn’t even climbed out of the car yet.
Shane Van Gisbergen had also spun off the nose of the Mayer car near the end of the race too and that fact wasn’t lost on Smith as well.
“I mean he sat on my door in the tunnel turn, three times and I about wrecked all three times, and then he wrecked the 97 [Van Gisbergen]. He ain’t going to mess with me anymore, I can promise you that and if he does I guarantee he won’t do it again. So, hopefully, he got the message.”
Was this a prior offender?
“No, I’ve never had anything go on with Mayer at all. We’ve always raced each other clean, and respectful, and I’ve had respect for him. I know a lot of other people in the garage have never really been on that same page with him. I’ve always had good run-ins with him so I was like, ‘Eh, it’s whatever I guess. Just sucks to be you, right?’ Today I got a glimpse of what they were talking about and I’m not going to put up with that.”
Read more: Recap and results from Saturday at Pocono
Mayer took responsibility for the SVG incident but didn’t understand Smith’s frustration.
“He can’t handle being raced hard, I guess, I don’t know,” Mayer said. “That was the last person I expected to be upset with me today. Huge apologies out to the 97 guys. I just messed up. I drove in a little too hard. Brake pedal started fanning a little bit and I didn’t account for that, so that’s on me there.
“But Chandler, I don’t know, man. Not my problem.”
What did he think about Smith’s argument?
“He was saying that I put it on his door multiple times, which if you watch racing you know that that happens every lap, so not really too sure why he’s mad about that,” Sam Mayer said. “Definitely frustrated to see him come in my window like that and not even give me a chance to talk back. Frustrating to hear that, but I’m also frustrated in myself for what happened with the 97.”
“It’s gutting, man. We were getting better and better,” van Gisbergen told Frontstretch after the race.
“Always on these ovals, third stage, I seem to be getting better and we made a bit of a good call there on strategy and we were on pretty good tires. We had speed as well and then just got run over by Sam. I’m sure he didn’t mean it but gutting.
“Then at the end, some wobbler just took me out again. That sucked.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
