Sheldon Creed during the DUDE Wipes 250 at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
RIDGEWAY, Va. — In the wake of the NASCAR XFINITY Series returning to Martinsville Speedway, the thought of the race from last October comes back to mind.
In the case of Sheldon Creed, he found himself front and center of the fiasco and finished the race in second after getting passed in the final turn. Of Creed’s eight runner-up finishes, two have come at the paper clip, so the return would bring optimism to try and find that first career win.
Creed qualified for Saturday night’s DUDE Wipes 250 in third but would start on the front row with the polesitter, Brandon Jones, dropping to the rear for unapproved adjustments.
Cole Custer, who started on the front row alongside Creed, cleared the No. 18 car and claimed the lead on Lap 1.
Creed was able to stay in second, but Custer began driving away, increasing his lead to over two seconds before a caution came out on Lap 9.
When the race went back green on Lap 14, it was Custer and Creed on the front row once again. However, they switched which lanes the two would restart in. Creed was beaten on the restart by Custer again, and lost a position to teammate Aric Almirola, falling to third place.
The race stayed green until Lap 36 when Hailie Deegan got turned around by Brennan Poole and got hit by Kyle Weatherman while going around. Under the caution, some different strategies took place. The JR Motorsports cars of Sammy Smith, Justin Allgaier, Carson Kvapil and Jones came down pit road to flip the stage, while the rest of the leaders stayed out to keep their track position.
Creed restarted in third when the race resumed with just 18 laps to go in Stage 1. Almirola kept the lead and Creed got by Custer to move into second.
In the closing laps of the stage, Creed began catching Almirola and battled it out for the stage victory. Creed got to the back bumper of Almirola, even making contact but was unable to make the pass, and would finish Stage 1 in second.
After the end of Stage 1, Creed along with the remaining cars who had not pit yet, besides Sam Mayer, came down pit road. As a result, Creed would restart in seventh with JR Motorsports occupying positions one through five.
Sheldon Creed (18) racing Carson Kvapil (88) at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
Chaos ensued on the restart, as Jones missed a shift from row two in the outside lane. This caused a chain reaction of cars piling into the back of one another, collecting a total of 13 cars. This ended the race of some good cars, including Austin Hill and A.J. Allmendinger, and put the race into a 9-minute, 46-second red flag delay.
Thankfully for Creed, he restarted in the bottom lane, escaping the wreck completely clean, and would restart in fourth place on Lap 81.
On the restart, Creed got by Allgaier to move up into third before another caution came out just four laps later when Parker Kligerman spun out. This led to another restart with Creed now in third.
Following the restart on Lap 91, the remainder of Stage 2 went green. Creed began struggling a bit during the run, falling outside of the top five and would finish the stage in the sixth position.
Creed’s No. 18 team had a good pit stop during the caution cycle, propelling him back up the fourth to start Stage 3. After choosing the bottom lane for the restart, Creed moved up to third when the green flag waved. Creed then got around Sammy Smith for second and got in line behind Almirola.
Chandler Smith was able to get around Creed for second during the 40-lap green flag run after the restart before it was halted for a debris caution. Creed was able to get back up into the second position on the following restart after Chandler Smith and Custer made contact, going up the track and opening up a lane for Creed to sneak through.
Creed remained running in second place until Lap 196 when a caution came out for Garrett Smithley who spun out.
Joe Gibbs Racing held positions one through three on the next restart on Lap 205 with Almirola, Smith and Creed. Smith battled Almirola hard on the outside for multiple laps before eventually getting cleared by Almriola and dropping down in front of Creed.
This is where the contact between Creed and Smith began to heat up, as Creed bumped Smith up the track to take back second place.
Creed held on to second for 20 more laps until Smith got to the inside of him on Lap 229. While inside, Smith got loose and ran Creed up the track, clearing into second place. The contact hurt Creed, allowing Sam Mayer to get by and take third away.
With just 17 laps to go, Ryan Sieg spun and hit the wall, allowing for another restart.
Creed did not get a great restart but was able to fence off Allgaier after making contact to hold onto fourth. Creed moved into third shortly after, passing Smith after getting moved by Almirola for the lead.
Almirola then got passed for the lead by Mayer, but a caution came out quickly after the move, sending the race to NASCAR overtime.
Creed chose the bottom lane behind the race leader Mayer. Going into Turn 1, Creed drove hard into the back of Mayer and ran the No. 1 car up the track allowing for Creed to get inside of Mayer.
The move did not work well at all for Creed.
While to the inside of Mayer, Creed barely clipped the curbing, causing him to get loose and make more contact with Mayer, losing all of his forward momentum.
Sheldon Creed on Friday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
Creed fell back outside of the top five and on the last lap Riley Herbst backed his car into the wall, bringing out a caution and ending the race. The caution saved Creed from losing any more positions, finishing in sixth while Almirola held on to win the race.
“Overall – good night for us,” Creed said after the race. “Really fast at times. Struggled a little bit with balance at times, but overall able to run top-three all, so that was nice.”
This was a much-needed run for Creed, coming off of back-to-back finishes outside of the top 30.
“That is the first night I felt like I was really comfortable in the car,” Creed shared post-race.
Creed’s sixth-place result got his No. 18 team back on track and was his fourth top-10 finish of the 2024 season.
“Just a good day to build off of, and now we kind of know what we need to work on when we come back and things that I like for the future.”
