MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Sheldon Creed flew under the radar during the NASCAR Xfinity Series season, but his consistency has him poised for a deep run in the playoffs which open this weekend at Kansas Speedway.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver is seeded ninth entering the playoffs, but while he went winless during the first 26 races, he recorded a series-leading 13 top-five finishes.
In addition, history may be on his side as Toyota has won nine of the past 12 Xfinity Series races at the 1.5-mile superspeedway. Creed knows other drivers have earned titles without winning races.
“Yeah, obviously Daniel (Hemric) and others have proved you can point your way in there (Championship 4) and win the championship,” Creed said. “I think Matt Crafton did it in 2019. So, it is possible. You have to be really consistent, really good to do that, which I think we do have the consistency and speed which we’ve shown in the last two-to-three months.
“I don’t want to back on that, I guess? I want to be consistent the next seven races, but I would really love to win in this first round, win stages so our points are up and would love to go win (Las) Vegas or Homestead and have an ‘off weekend’ in Martinsville.”
Creed came to JGR this year after several seasons with Richard Childress Racing, and will depart at season’s end to join the Haas Factory team next season.
“I think I came to JGR pretty low on confidence and yeah, I’m not sure I was having fun with it anymore,” he explained. “And yeah, I think that’s all turned around. I think my confidence grows every week. We’ve been leading laps more recently. Don’t want to say we should’ve won Darlington but were in position to win Darlington.
“So yeah, confidence has been up, and our team has a lot of fun,” Creed added. “Running top-five every week is fun, right? It’s better than running sixth, seventh or eighth, or 12th-15th. Yeah, I think everyone’s in a good mood right now and working really hard at it. I’d say the No. 18 team is in a good place.”
Creed enters the playoffs winless in 96 career starts in the Xfinity Series. He looks forward to ending the drought.
“Yeah, I feel like it’ll be a huge weight off my shoulders. Obviously, this has been riding on me for three years now,” explained the former off-road racer. “Yeah, I don’t know, I’ll for sure be relieved. And it’s going to happen, one of these days. I thought it was going to happen just a couple weeks ago at Darlington.
“Once we win, I have a feeling they’ll come a little easier and hopefully more often.”