SHR’s Xfinity Star Unravels His Battle With Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Prodigy Vying for the Victory

The Iowa race was full of heartbreaks over tire woes. However, Riley Herbst and Sam Mayer were involved in a different battle–the battle to the finish line. As Herbst crossed the finish line at Iowa Speedway, the famous words of Ricky Bobby, likely played through his mind – “if you ain’t first, you’re last.“ 

He just came an inch short of his career’s second win at the NASCAR Xfinity Series. And it’s much more crucial for him to win races, with his team SHR disbanding. And for him, essentially, every race is an audition. This race left him more bewildered than the SHR drivers were when their team disbanded, with Tony Stewart seemingly keeping them in the dark. He even confessed to having mixed frustrations after the race.

Mixed Frustrations for Riley Herbst after the race

During a green-white-checker finish at Iowa’s Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr’s prodigy, Sam Mayer, secured his second win of the 2024 season. The driver who was least pleased about his win? Riley Herbst! Riley Herbst fell just 0.146 seconds short to pick up the victory at Iowa Speedway. 

The two leaders of the pack found themselves together throughout the multiple restarts. And given the tire issues, there were many! And Mayer did seem aggressive in his approach. Given that after the repave, the high-line is extremely favorable, Mayer took a chance. He crowded Riley Herbst in turn one and secured the lead.

After the race, the SHR Xfinity star showed mixed emotions. One part of him was mad at Mayer and he even took out the frustration on track by bumping into him and taking down his left rear post-victory. He even expressed his displeasure to the media. Talking to Frontstretch, he said, “Yeah, I mean, that was just to show my displeasure from Stage 1 or 2. I don’t know what stage it was, but it was the earlier stuff. I didn’t think it was fair, his attempt at the slide job. It wasn’t even close; I was still at his door handle from the incident. It felt a bit childish to me at that point, but I was just frustrated.”

But while his race to the end was frustrating, he felt a sense of relief delivering a brilliant performance after a while. His last top-five finish came at Talladega this season. And his last two races were completely lackluster. He finished 10th at Portland and 13th at Sonoma. He said after the race, “The last two weeks on a road course was utterly embarrassing. It was an unacceptable performance from my end and everybody on the 98, so I’m happy to be back on an oval. I have mixed frustrations for sure.”

On one side he seems angered with what went down with Mayer and on the other, he just seems happy to be where he is presently in terms of performance. 

While everything didn’t go in his favor, he sure did put up a great fight. However, these two were not the only drivers to have things get heated up between them!

Joe Gibbs Racing driver mad with his teammate, costing him a win!

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Sheldon Creed and John Hunter Nemechek are not happy teammates after what went down at the Iowa track. Creed flat-out expressed how his teammate Nemechek’s actions cost both of them their chance of winning it on Saturday. Both of them were battling it out for the second position and with 12 laps remaining when Creed made a move into turn 3. This led to a contact, causing them all the precious positions they worked so hard for. According to him, Nemechek should have yielded his position, considering that he doesn’t even compete for points in the Xfinity Series.

Creed said after the race told Bob Pockrass, “Got a really good side draft and went to go slide him into (Turn) 3. Yeah, I just gave him the option, what we call it, and he knew I was going to throttle up either way. I just figured he would cross me, or… he doesn’t run for points so maybe give it to me. But yeah he throttled up outside of me kind of cost both of us there, I don’t know. I’m going to blame him, he’s going to blame me, right?

Creed managed to secure a top-five win. However, Nemechek was a victim of which half the lineup was- tire issues! Almost 70% of the cautions were due to tire issues, just highlighting the failure of Goodyear on the track.

What do you think? Is creed correct when he said that Nemechek should have yielded? Let us know in the comments.