By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Sheldon Creed won the K&N Pro Series West’s return to dirt Thursday night at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Dirt Track. And though dirt racing compiles most of his racing background, he needed a little help to get it done.
On a restart with five laps to go in the 102-lap race, race leader Christopher Bell was penalized for jumping the restart. After leading 27 laps, the XFINITY Series regular was pushed back to 10th.
And then emerged Creed, who held off pole-sitter Hailie Deegan to score his first K&N West win.
“We got close once or twice last year,” Creed said of getting the first win. “Led Dover until like 20 to go and blew a tire. I thought we gave a couple away last year. It’s really cool to come here this year and finish it off.”
Running his first West race of 2018, the opportunity came late in the going with Levin Racing.
“I was going [run this race] with Jefferson Pitts Racing earlier in the year when we talked about it. Then things changed,” he said. “Levin Racing was kind of the only car open. Pretty cool to put this together two weeks ago, they did everything we wanted. I’m super thankful for them.”
Coming home second, Deegan was one spot short of securing her first win this rookie West season. And after becoming the first female pole winner in K&N Series history, the night was nearly capped off with another run of history until a shifter issue pushed her outside the top 10.
“I knew it was going to be a struggle from the get-go,” Deegan said. “I just kept overdriving it from the initial start. I dropped back, jammed the shifter from third to fourth… and I think we chipped some teeth off the gears or something because it kept popping out of fourth every other lap or so. We had to battle that all night.”
With a little more time, Deegan was confident she would catch leader Creed for the win.
“I think with another lap or two, we definitely could have had him,” she said. “I knew I was in the best position to strike. I expected Sheldon to overdrive the first corner a little more, but he’s a good driver, he’s done this before, he’s raced ARCA on dirt. He knows to protect that last corner. He knew what do to and drove a smart race.”
Championship leader Derek Thorn increased his point gap to 31 on Ryan Partridge by finishing third while Partridge came home eighth. Cole Keatts earned his first top five in fourth while two-time champion Brendan Gaughan made his first series start since 2002, finishing fifth for Bill MacAnally Racing.
Cole Rouse led 16 laps, however, fell to finish sixth while Trevor Huddleston and Matt Levin filled the top 10.
Derek Kraus started second and led the most laps on the night (31) before having multiple on-track incidents delay his run. He eventually crashed out with six laps to go to finish 17th.
https://twitter.com/LVMotorSpeedway/status/1040467501237190656
Great racing today at the #KNPROSERIES oval dirt race! Congrats to @sheldoncreed for the win, and @hailiedeegan in a close 2nd! #KNwest #DirtOval #NASCAR #KNfilters pic.twitter.com/VOB5IpVUjm
— K&N Filters (@knfilters) September 14, 2018