On a long final run at Darlington Raceway, Sheldon Creed drove off with the race win in the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet. This is Creed’s second career win, and it put him within striking distance of the points lead to open the 2026 Chase.
Creed is now just seven points out of the championship lead, which is still held by Justin Allgaier despite a 17th-place finish.
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“Oh, this is everything to me,” said Creed in Victory Lane. “I’ve been so close here so many times, and I’ve got to pick a place on the schedule to get a win, this is it. To be honest, I wasn’t real happy with the car the first run, and we worked on it all night, and JT and the boys just gave me kind of what I needed there at the end, and I was able to get away. Super proud of everyone at Haas Factory Team … everyone that’s on this team.
“Just want to thank everyone, my grandfather, my entire family. Hopefully one of these days I’ll win one in front of them, but I was super excited to have the kids and wife here for this one, and just super happy to open the Chase for the win. I don’t know where everyone stacked us, but hopefully we kind of put our name on the card, and hopefully we can make a run for this championship.”
Corey Day fought back from a mid-race incident to finish second, Brent Crews third, Sammy Smith fourth, and Austin Hill fifth.
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Anthony Alfredo, Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Jeremy Clements, and Brandon Jones filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Stage 1
As Allgaier led the early laps, the first Chase driver to find trouble was Rajah Caruth. He had to pit under green with a mechanical issue, losing two laps.
The first incident of the race was Preston Pardus going for a spin, triggering a caution just outside ten to go.
A handful of cars stayed out, led by Jones and Day, but they were quickly swallowed up by the field on the restart.
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Jones reclaimed the lead as the field fanned out three and four wide, and held off his teammate Kvapil for the stage win.
As Allgaier won Stage 1, he was followed by Kvapil, Hill, Mayer, Retzlaff, Alfredo, Clements, Love, Sanchez, and Gray.
Stage 2
While most of the field stayed out during the stage break, a few pitted for slightly fresher tires.
Allgaier continued to hold command of the race, while Creed and Retzlaff worked their way inside the top ten on those fresher tires. Before they could make any further headway, Dye crashed into the wall after a bad block on Thompson, damaging the right-front.
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The intensity only picked up after that, with Allgaier nearly getting turned as he spun the tires on the next restart. Kvapil snatched the lead away, and elsewhere in the pack, things were getting heated. Day got into Sawalich three times between the exit of Turn 2 and the entrance of Turn 3, spinning him out and damaging his own right-front. A unimpressed Sawalich then doored Day under caution.
On the next restart, Sanchez slid up into Jeb Burton, sending him spinning towards the end inside wall. Burton turned the car back the other, avoiding a head-on-crash only to slide back up into the field. Glen Reen could not avoid, slamming into Burton as Mason Maggio was also collected. There was significant damage to all three cars.
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Caruth narrowly avoided that wreck, and because of all the yellows, he was suddenly back on the lead lap via the free pass.
These cautions really spread out the strategies, and there were different levels of tire life throughout the entire field.
Alfredo, who was on the same strategy as Kvapil, impressively took the lead away and drove off. Day, who had wrecked a few laps earlier, was rocketing through the field on sticker tires.
Alfredo went on to win Stage 2, followed by Day, Creed, S. Smith, Kvapil, Allgaier, Hill, Mayer, K. Sieg, and brother R. Sieg.
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Stage 3
Creed and Day won the race off pit road, while Alfredo dropped to 10th due to a slow stop.
Creed held the lead on the restart while S. Smith moved up to second in the running.
Back in the pack, Joey Gase got loose and spun, collecting Lavar Scott, who slammed the inside wall. Sawalich spun in the chaos, also hitting the inside wall.
After that, the race settled into a long run. Creed checked out, and Day moved up into second but still nearly three seconds behind.
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Allgaier bounced off the wall with just over 20 laps to go, struggling with his ill-handling race car. He wasn’t the only only one, as several drivers were sliding all over the track as the tires aged. Allgaier, Kvapil, and Retzlaff were all notable Chase drivers who dropped down the running order during that last run.
Caruth, who drove all the way up to sixth, fell off the pace with a fuel pickup issue and had to pit, derailing his impressive comeback.
At the front, it was all Creed as Day was unable to make up enough ground to be a threat for the win.
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