Everyone expected Justin Allgaier or Carson Kvapil to come home with the win in Saturday night’s Fleetio 200 at Darlington Raceway. And for a large portion of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase-opening race, it looked very much like that was what was going to happen.
However, Sheldon Creed, who suffered from an ill-handling car early in the race, finally got his No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet all tuned up, thanks to adjustments made by crew chief Jonathan Toney. And with 53 laps to go, Creed gained the race lead on pit road.
“To be honest, wasn’t real happy with the car that first run. And yeah, we just worked on it all night,” Creed explained. “[Crew chief Jonathan Toney] and the boys just gave me kind of what I needed there at the end, and I was able to just get away.”
Once the race went back green, it was very apparent that Creed was now the guy to beat, as he began pulling away down the stretch. As Corey Day incredibly worked his way back into the runner-up spot after a crash earlier in the evening, there was little the Hendrick Motorsports driver could do to chase down Creed.
He was simply too strong. Creed would cruise to his second career win by a margin of 2.961 seconds.
Obviously, Creed’s first career win, which came at EchoPark Speedway in February, was special. But nothing can top the win on Saturday night at a track that Creed has felt like he’s been so close to victory previously.
“Oh, this is everything to me. I’ve been so close here so many times, and yeah, if I could pick a place on the schedule to get a win, this is it,” Creed said in his victory interview on The CW.
Creed, who led the final 53 laps in Saturday night’s race, clawed his way to second in the Chase standings with the victory, and now sits just seven points behind Justin Allgaier for the series point lead.
While he couldn’t quite get the race win, Day did a good job rebounding from what could have been a rough start to his Chase quest. With the second-place finish, Day moved up to fifth in the standings from seventh, and sits 46 points away from the point leader, Allgaier.
Brent Crews finished third, ahead of Sammy Smith, and Austin Hill, who claimed the fifth position.
Anthony Alfredo, Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Jeremy Clements, and Brandon Jones capped off the top-10 finishers in the event.
Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier, who were the dominant forces for the majority of the race, would fade to finishes of 12th and 17th, respectively. Both drivers suffered on the long run to finish the race.
Parker Retzlaff (21st) and Rajah Caruth (26th) were the only two Chase drivers to finish outside of the top-20 on Saturday night.
Caruth, who rebounded from two laps down earlier in the race after what seemed like a fuel pickup issue, found himself in the sixth position late in the race. However, the fuel pickup issues returned, which ruined the possible comeback finish.
Next up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is the Nu Way 225 at World Wide Technology Raceway on Saturday, September 12. That race will be televised on The CW with coverage set to kick off at 7:30 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.
