By Neha Dwivedi, Staff Writer
After knocking on the door 15 times, Sheldon Creed finally kicked it down and stepped into Victory Lane. It may not go down as the cleanest drive of his career, but he definitely positioned himself in the right place at the right time, in the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250.
As Ross Chastain and Austin Hill locked horns for the lead on the final lap, their clash turned into chaos. Hill nearly looped it, Chastain lost steam, and Creed slipped through all of it to steal the moment and beat them to the end.
Starting off from P4, Creed kept his nose clean early and brought it home P6 in Stage 1, even as the race started throwing punches. Just five laps into the 163-lap run, Ryan Sieg got turned into the frontstretch wall after contact from Corey Day, setting off a pileup that swept up Harrison Burton, Blaine Perkins, and others.
Later, as Rajah Caruth grabbed the lead and sealed his first stage win in NASCAR, Creed crossed that Stage in P9.
With 141 laps done, another storm hit. Sammy Smith snapped loose entering Turn 1, lighting the fuse on a chain reaction that pulled in more than 10 cars, including William Sawalich, Gio Ruggiero, and Lavar Scott. From that point on, the race turned into survival mode, knocking contenders out one by one and setting the stage for a six-lap dash to the finish.
Hill, Chastain, and Creed cycled to the front and traded blows down the stretch. Hill looked set to seal the deal as he led down the backstretch on the final lap, with Chastain building a head of steam behind him. But interestingly, earlier, when Chastain held the lead, he left the door open and didn’t throw a block when Hill dove low.
But heading into Turn 3, the tables turned. Chastain made his move to the inside, Hill threw a block, and contact clipped Hill’s rear bumper, sending him spinning from the lead. As the front pack lost momentum and the field scattered, Creed took the opportunity and dashed across the line first.
After seasons of coming up just short, Creed finally cashed in and stamped a milestone win in one of the wildest races EchoPark Speedway has served up.
Letting the mask slip post-race, Creed said, “It looked like another second or third place run there coming out of Turn 2 there. It wears on you to not win, and it takes a lot of people to do it. I don’t think one win is going to change a whole lot, but a couple might. I need to win more if I want a future here.”
“I’ve thought every year, ‘Am I just not good enough?’ The confidence got killed the last four years.” Creed continued. “Just had to believe I can do it again.”
He admitted the drought weighed on him, saying not winning even once can eat away at belief. As he put it, “Wears on you because you win a truck championship and win eight truck races and have a shot at winning truck races every week and then go to Xfinity Racing and kind of expect yourself to succeed right away and obviously had a lot of good runs, but just never finish it off, never won. So to finally do that and kind of looked like another second or third place run there coming off a two and yeah, just it all worked out for us tonight.”
Hill, for his part, kept it off the wall and avoided taking half the field with him, clawing back to finish 12th. Chastain salvaged P6 when the race ended.
Parker Retzlaff brought his #99 Viking Motorsports Chevrolet home in P2, but it wasn’t a gift. After hanging around the front all day and steering clear of late trouble, he walked away with a career-best result. Nick Sanchez, winner from the series’ last stop at EchoPark Speedway, rounded out the podium with P3 in his No. 25 AM Racing Ford.