Creed Finally Takes First O’Reilly Win After 15 2nd Place Finishes

Sheldon Creed had been cruelly tantalized with 15 second-place finishes over his first 137 starts in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. With how many times Creed pounded on the door of victory lane, it started to feel like he would never be let in.

Saturday night, in the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 at EchoPark Speedway, the driver of the No. 00 car was No. 1 on the scoring pylon after the checkered flag was waved to the field, and he pulled it off in dramatic fashion.

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With one lap to go, it looked like Austin Hill was headed to yet another superspeedway win, a week after winning the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway. However, Ross Chastain, a regular in the NASCAR Cup Series, would make contact with Hill down the backstretch on the final lap of the race, which sent Hill sliding sideways on the apron in Turn 3.

The contact also slowed Chastain’s momentum, which cleared the path for Creed to cruise by on the outside, and he would lead a parade of cars to the finish line for the win, ahead of Parker Retzlaff.

When asked if the finish played out how he expected, a stunned Creed said, “No, it never plays out how you kind of draw it up. But finally a winner, and maybe, I don’t know if one win will kind of revibe my career, but maybe if I win a few this year, it will. And probably going to drink a ton of Coors Lights tonight.”

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Creed says while he’s suffered from a bumpy journey in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series since he won eight races and a championship in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series between 2020 and 2021, that he’s thankful for everyone who has given him an opportunity to allow him to chase his first win, which proved to be so elusive.

“Incredible. Just yeah, been a loser the last few years, and just kept showing up. Not how you draw it up when you win a Truck championship, and win races and go to [O’Reilly] and go four years winless,” Creed explained. “So, incredible. Thank all of my past teams, RCR, and Gibbs; they all gave me great opportunities. And now, here with Haas Factory Team, back with Chevrolet, and great engines. Hendrick engine shop did a great job for us. Road Ranger, Ollie’s, and everyone who supports us. Gene Haas, Joe Custer. Incredible, incredible.”

With his runner-up finish, Retzlaff matched his career best finish in just his second start behind the wheel of the No. 99 Viking Motorsports Chevrolet. And incredibly, Nick Sanchez, who was rideless until a couple of weeks ago, came home with a third-place finish, driving for a team, AM Racing, that also didn’t expect to be fielding a team in the series a few weeks ago.

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Sanchez, who won this race a season ago while driving for Big Machine Racing, came close to doing it again this year.

After a rough night, where he ended the race for a lot of his fellow Chevrolets, Corey Day was able to rebound for a solid fourth-place result, driving the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, and he was followed across the finish line by Jesse Love, the defending series champion.

Ross Chastain, Sam Mayer, Rajah Caruth, Taylor Gray, and Brandon Jones rounded out the top-10 finishers in Saturday night’s race.

Hill, who had the race lead with less than half a lap to go, wound up a disappointing 12th. However, when looking back at the replay, Hill was pleased about the save that he made.

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“What about that save, huh? The save was insane,” Hill said in his post-race interview on The CW. “I thought I was going to be head-on into the fence there.”

Hill says that Chastain, who earns points in the NASCAR Cup Series, straight-up drove through him as he had nothing to race for but the race win, unlike Hill, who is battling for the championship.

“End of the race, you have to throw the block, and [Chastain] drove through me,” Hill said. “He has nothing to lose, he’s not racing for points or anything. And I don’t know if I’m going to race him again later on, but that’s Ross for you.”

While he failed to secure back-to-back race wins, Hill does exit EchoPark Speedway with the points lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Hill will carry a 22-point advantage over Rajah Caruth into next weekend’s event at Circuit of the Americas, a 2.4-mile road course in Austin, TX. With his win on Saturday night, Sheldon Creed moved up to third in the standings, and sits 24 points behind Hill.

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There are 22 races until the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase for the championship begins.

Next up for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series is the Focused Health 250 at Circuit of the Americas on Saturday, February 28. That race will be televised by The CW and coverage of the event is set to begin at 3:00 PM ET. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the race.

Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 Race Results

(S1) Stage 1 winner
(S2) Stage 2 winner
(X) Xfinity Fastest Lap
# Rookie of the Year contender
(i) Ineligible to score points

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Time of Race: 2 hours, 22 minutes, 45 seconds
Average Speed: 105.508 mph
Margin of Victory: 0.309 seconds
Cautions: 7 for 46 laps
Lead Changes: 24 among 11 drivers

This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Creed Finally Takes First O’Reilly Win After 15 2nd Place Finishes.