Profile · Franklin, Wisconsin
Samuel Adam “Sam” Mayer
NASCAR Xfinity driver born and raised in Franklin; youngest touring champion (2019); first Xfinity win at Road America
$100,000
Sam Mayer is the Franklin-born NASCAR driver who learned to race on a backyard kart track his father paved into the family woods, then became the youngest touring champion in series history and won his first Xfinity race at Road America. The house is still in Franklin; the kart track is still there. Born June 26, 2003, he grew up on the family’s roughly one-hundred-acre wooded Franklin property, where Scott Mayer built corners stolen from famous road courses. When Sam was four, his father put him in a kiddie kart and said go easy while following in a golf cart; the boy stood on the gas, did not spin, and left Scott and Grandma in the dust. Scott later told Dave Kallmann that was the beginning of the end. Badger Kart Club in Dousman came next, then Charlotte summers by eleven, a Young Lions title at fourteen, and the youngest win at Greenville-Pickens. He spent a first high-school semester at Wisconsin Lutheran before finishing online. In 2019 he became the youngest NASCAR touring champion at 16 years, 3 months, and 8 days, beating Todd Gilliland’s previous mark. His first Xfinity Series win came at Road America on July 29, 2023, the Elkhart Lake road course Wisconsin kids treat as a pilgrimage. In 2024 the City of Franklin put him in the Fourth of July parade in a Camaro with his father Scott. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s shop and Charlotte are the professional address; Franklin is the hometown claim.