(Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
DOVER, Del. — Sheldon Creed hoped Saturday would finally be the day he won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race and believed he had the speed to do it. The 25-year-old from Alpine, California hoped to catch a late caution in Saturday’s A-GAME 200 at Dover Motor Speedway, but instead had to pit from the lead for fuel and settle for 11th.
“I thought we were going all the way but I guess we couldn’t make it on fuel and just came down and splashed it,” Creed said after the race. “I wish the caution would have come out.”
Creed ended up on a different fuel strategy based on two separate circumstances. During the Lap 20 caution when most cars elected to pit, Creed stayed out with teammate Austin Hill and the two Stewart-Haas Racing cars. He finished third in Stage 1, recording eight stage points.
The most detrimental effect, however, came at the beginning of the final stage when Creed spun out in Turn 4. He got stuck three wide between Justin Allgaier and Sammy Smith and got sucked around, but managed to avoid contact with the wall and other cars.
“I let [Smith] get a good run off of [Turn] 2. I was honestly surprised that he put us three-wide,” Creed said. “I shifted down and throttled it up to keep it off the wall, and then once I knew I wasn’t going to hit the outside wall, I kind of slid … just thankful that no one hit me because that would have ended our day.”
From that point on, the race stayed green. While most of the field pitted between Lap 161 and Lap 171, Creed still had enough fuel to keep running. He acknowledged that a caution would have allowed him to make it until the end without putting.
But with 11 laps to go, crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz called Creed to pit road for two seconds of fuel. Creed managed to not fall too far behind, narrowly missing his sixth top 10 of the season
“If the caution came out, I think we win the race,” Creed said. “If we could have made it on fuel, we win the race. If I don’t spin the car out on lap three of the restart, we have a damn good shot at winning the race.”
After an off week, the NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Darlington Raceway for the Shriners Children’s 200 as part of Throwback Weekend. The race is scheduled for Saturday, May 13 at 1:30 p.m. on FOX.
