LEBANON, Tenn. — Sheldon Creed desperately needed a good finish. He had free-fallen in the Xfinity Series regular–season championship battle.
Creed began his tenure with Haas Factory Team ranking third in the points standings through the opening three events. The No. 00 team had its first setback of 2025 at Phoenix Raceway, getting involved in a wreck triggered by Austin Hill. He followed that up with four straight top-10 finishes through Darlington Raceway.
Since then, though, it‘s been an abysmal five-race stretch for Creed. The No. 00 Ford had consecutive DNFs due to wrecks at Bristol Motor Speedway and Rockingham Speedway. He managed a best finish during that span of ninth at Talladega Superspeedway before wrecking out just past the halfway point at Texas Motor Speedway the following week. He dropped to 12th on the playoff grid, only 11 markers above the elimination line. With a different strategy compared to most of the field, he rebounded to 10th at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
After posting the fifth-best time in qualifying on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway, Creed had a good start for the Tennessee Lottery 250. He finished sixth in the opening stage and improved to second by the conclusion of Stage 2. The No. 00 pit crew thrived at the stage break, getting Creed the lead off pit road.
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“They were on it tonight and got us the lead,” Creed said of his No. 00 bunch. “Just got us track position all night. Could have made a few different decisions on restarts to try to get the lead back like [Justin Allgaier] did. I don‘t know if I was going to hold him off, I was getting too tight every run.”
Allgaier was in a class of his own on Saturday, leading a race-high 101 laps and having a maximum 61-point day. Creed dropped to fourth in the closing laps, with his Haas teammate Sam Mayer getting by to be the best finishing Ford driver. Rookie Connor Zilisch finished runner-up.
Still, a fourth-place finish is Creed‘s first top five since the end of March at Martinsville Speedway, extending his record-breaking runner-up streak to 14 occasions before winning a race.
Creed stated: “We‘ve been wrecked when we‘ve struggled, and we‘ve been wrecked running good. You try to keep doing your job, showing up and working hard. We knew we were capable of running like we did tonight.
“Still a little bit of work for us both to do to run mainly with the 7, he‘s consistently fast every week. Need to keep working on it.”
Creed leaped four spots in the standings to sixth, now 38 points above the bubble with 12 races remaining in the regular season.
The 47 points earned at Nashville were the most Creed tallied in a race since the season opener at Daytona International Speedway (51). Of his ranking, he put it simply, “Love it. Need to keep trying to stack them and move up the ladder.”
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