It looked like Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway was going to serve as an excellent points night for some of Sheldon Creed’s biggest competitors for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship. Then, late-race shenanigans unfolded, which allowed Creed to head down pit road late in the event for some fresh tires.
This allowed Creed to charge through the field in the closing laps, and as his fellow Chasers, Justin Allgaier, Jesse Love, and Taylor Gray, got into it with each other at the front of the field, it opened a lane for Creed to zoom on past for the lead, and ultimately the win.
For Creed, the driver of the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet, this is his third win of the season, and his second win in his last three starts.
“Yeah, just great call by my crew chief and engineer there to put tires on,” Creed said of the strategic late-race pit call which netted him a competitive advantage. “And great pit stop by my guys to get me out first to be the first one on tires. To be honest, I wasn’t really good all night. Struggled with the balance on our Ollie’s Chevrolet. Man, just hats off to these guys, we just never give up.”
Creed was able to extend his point lead over Justin Allgaier from three points to 11 points. Creed feels he and the No. 00 team have asserted themselves as one of the favorites for the championship after their strong start to the Chase, but he stopped short of calling themselves the overwhelming favorites.
“I don’t know if it makes us the title favorite, there’s a long way to go. Six [races] to go, and yeah, I thought we were going to just lose some points tonight. I think winning kind of helps us salvage that a bit. I like to think we’re a favorite. If not, we’re at least talked about now.”
William Sawalich was able to move past the drama of the last two weeks with Corey Day with a runner-up finish. Brent Crews, Sawalich’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, would come home with a solid third-place finish.
Allgaier saw a win slip through his grasp due to an aggressive late-race battle for the lead with Jesse Love, a battle where Love made contact that derailed Allgaier’s hopes for a win. After the race, Allgaier sought out Love, and had a brief conversation.
“Just questioning why,” Allgaier said of what he said to Love after the race. “I don’t know, really disappointed. I felt like we raced clean all night, and it was like, he didn’t even try to make the corner.”
Allgaier, who came into the Chase as the favorite to win the championship, has seen his place in the standings fade over the opening three races of the Chase. Still, he remains second in the standings.
Corey Day took home an excellent fifth-place finish, while Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Parker Retzlaff, Dean Thompson, and Sammy Smith rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Love would fade to a 17th-place finish after having an on-track shoving match with Taylor Gray after his contact-infused battle with Allgaier a few laps earlier. After the race, Love was asked if Allgaier was justified in feeling upset with him.
“Yeah, he is. Yeah, he is,” Love explained.
Love owned up to his mistakes in the late-race battle with Allgaier.
“I needed to run my best corner, and instead I got caught in the moment racing him. And in turn, that led me down a path to make an enemy that I didn’t need to make. And [I made] a terrible decision that took ourselves out of contention to win,” Love stated. “So, I’m just really frustrated with myself. I owe an apology to the No. 7 team, to my team, and everybody at Welcome, North Carolina.”
Love, who won last week’s race at Gateway to work himself back into the championship conversation, now sits 41 points behind Creed in the fourth position of the Chase Grid.
Next up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is the Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, October 3. That race will be televised on The CW, and TV coverage is set to kick off at 7:30 PM ET.
