Sheldon Creed continued to show his consistency with his second straight runner-up finish in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday evening. Creed, who leads the series with 13 top-five finishes, also scored his 13th second-place finish in the NASCAR Xfinity Series as he continues to search for his first victory.
Creed led three Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas in the top-five with Chandler Smith finishing third and Ryan Truex ending up fifth. Smith, who added to his Playoff point total with a stage one victory, and Creed are now both set-up to compete in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs. Smith is the fourth seed, and starts 17 points up on the Playoff cutline, while Creed is the ninth seed – just three points out heading into Kansas next weekend.
With Truex’s fifth-place finish, the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team clinched the regular season owner’s championship on the strength of seven victories.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Bristol Motor Speedway
Race 25 of 33 – 159.9 Miles, 300 Laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Cole Custer*
2nd, SHELDON CREED
3rd, CHANDLER SMITH
4th, Jesse Love*
5th, RYAN TRUEX
19th, JOE GRAF JR.
35th, JEFFREY EARNHARDT
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
SHELDON CREED, No. 18 Friends of Jaclyn Foundation Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
Can you talk about your race car? You were very strong all night, what more did you need?
“Yeah, maybe just not slipping up there when I had the lead. He got loose on the first restart when he got the lead, and then I did the same thing that he did. Just got free there – I felt like I was pretty good there in the middle of the run, and I could stay with him. I was just trying to pace with him, and then I pancaked the fence all by myself, and then I hit it four or five more times, and I felt like I never really recovered after that. Just was a little too tight at the end of the run when we got to lap traffic, when I would get close. I just needed to turn a little bit better. We are really consistent with our Toyota team– another second. I’ll take it and we will keep moving forward.”
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 81 Mobil 1 Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
Do you think you are back hitting your stride?
“Yeah, definitely – we had a solid showing tonight with our No. 81 Mobil 1 GR Supra. It was a fast as Xfinity internet. Unfortunately, after stage one – got stuck in traffic back there, and clawed our way back to third and just rode behind our teammate there for 80 laps trying to find a way around him to go run down the 00 (Cole Custer) – tried to figure out some way to do it clean and unfortunately, ran out of laps. It is what it is. We will move on to Kansas.”
RYAN TRUEX, No. 20 Toyota Genuine Parts Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
Can you tell us about your night?
“It went pretty well. I did a terrible job in qualifying in my GR Supra – I feel like being a part-time driver, qualifying is the hardest thing, because it is so hard to find that limit when you only get 20 minutes of practice, and you are expected to go run half-a-second quicker. When you don’t race every week, you just don’t know where that delta is. I just under drove it in qualifying and put us behind the 8-ball. We had a really good start – decent stage one. We got stage points, and then stage two – we flipped the stage, got really good stage points and then had to hold on to the track position. A little too free that last run. I was hanging on in front of Dale (Earnhardt). Just thankful he didn’t left rear me, because he could have, pretty easily used me up – but had a lot of fun racing him. Hopefully, I see you all again in a more full time capacity.”
Golin for Toyota Racing PR
