Creed Avoids Chaos
Sheldon Creed en route to victory Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images photo)

Creed Avoids Chaos To Earn Truck Series Title Shot

FORT WORTH, Texas – Staying ahead of a myriad of chaos down the home stretch at Texas Motor Speedway, Sheldon Creed drove to a berth in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Championship 4 with a win in Sunday’s SpeedyCash.com 400.

Creed, the driver of the No. 2 Chevy Accessories Chevrolet Silverado for GMS Racing, dominated the afternoon by leading 131 of 152 laps for his fourth win of the season and first in the Lone Star State.

But while the box score may have made it look like a walk in the park, Creed’s path to victory lane was anything but easy.

The Alpine, Calif., native lost the lead to a charging Stewart Friesen with 22 to go – falling back to third behind Johnny Sauter – and appeared to be fading out of a shot at challenging for the win.

His victory hopes came back in full force four laps later, however, after Sauter washed up into Friesen while the pair battled for the lead in turn two.

Sauter’s out-of-control truck took both he and Friesen up into the outside wall, eliminating the pair from contention and gifting the top spot back to Creed with 18 to go.

Racing resumed with 12 laps left and saw Ben Rhodes get to second, only to lose the spot with eight to go when he tried to go to the outside of Creed for the lead and got out of the groove.

That left Austin Hill as the challenger in the runner-up spot, and Hill slipped inside Creed coming to two to go just as the yellow flag waved behind them for a crash in which Ben Rhodes retaliated against Christian Eckes and sent Eckes’ Toyota Tundra spinning hard into the outside wall on the frontstretch.

An overtime restart followed, with Moffitt shoving Creed clear of Hill going into turn three and allowing Creed to cruise to the victory unchallenged over the final two laps.

Creed joins Moffitt as the second GMS Racing driver to lock into the Championship 4 in as many weeks.

“Man, what a good truck my guys put together,” said Creed. “We’ve been inconsistent here, but we’ve always had speed, and today, man, just awesome. I finally won in front of my mom and dad. They’re here today. It’s really special.

“Two trucks locked in for the organization — that’s awesome — and hopefully we can get the other two (Zane Smith and Tyler Ankrum) or at least one more next weekend. Hard racing today. Man, it’s crazy,” Creed added. “We’ve just been working for this all year, and I feel like I’ve improved so much and put so much work into this. Going to Martinsville stress-free is so nice.”

Hill crossed second, .131 seconds back, followed by Zane Smith, Raphael Lessard and Moffitt.

Matt Crafton, who won the second stage, was sixth ahead of Austin Wayne Self, Dylan Lupton, Derek Kraus and Tanner Gray.

Rhodes, who was able to continue after his incident with Eckes, was involved in a last-lap crash with Chandler Smith and Josh Bilicki that officially ended the race under the caution flag.

To view complete race results, advance to the next page.