Sheldon Creed battled through the pack to lead Toyota with a runner-up finish in a wild ending to the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen International. Creed’s runner-up finish was his series-leading 12th top-five of the season and clinched the California-native a Playoff berth. Creed was joined inside the top-five by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chandler Smith, who was scored in fourth.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Watkins Glen International
Race 24 of 33 – 200.9 Miles, 82 Laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Connor Zilisch*
2nd, SHELDON CREED
3rd, AJ Allmendinger*
4th, CHANDLER SMITH
5th, Shane van Gisbergen*
24th, ED JONES
25th, TY GIBBS
26th, ARIC ALMIROLA
29th, THOMAS ANNUZIATA
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
SHELDON CREED, No. 18 Friends of Jaclyn Foundation Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
Are you happy with second after what you went through today?
“Yeah, we ran in the top-10 all day, so that was fun. Strategy got weird there at the end. Cars running out fuel and this and that, and our battle for second was crazy between the four of us. I think we all knew that might have been the battle for the win if the 88 (Connor Zilisch) ran out. To get clear there in second, I was just waiting for the 88 to run out of fuel there and the caution came out before we finished it. I don’t know if he makes it or not, but I’m not mad at the second today because I thought we overachieved a bit for how we ran, so days like that are always really good. Just another top-five. We will keep clicking away. It is a great time to be starting to get consistent for the Playoffs.”
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 81 Smith General Contracting Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
You came back from an overheating issue to finish in the top-five. What can you say about this team?
“I’m just really proud of everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing. The No. 81 Smith General Contracting Toyota GR Supra was as fast as Xfinity internet. Obviously, those overheating issues didn’t do us any good. We had to come in and go to the back and play a little strategy. We lost a little stage points in stage two to get somewhat of our track position back, but we clawed back through there before all of that happened, and Jeff Meendering (crew chief) made a really good change when we had to come in and do all of that service, and it made us better than we were in stage one. There was a bunch of times that we were the fastest car on the track, and it would have been really cool to see what would have happened if we didn’t have to go to the back, but still can’t be too disappointed with how today went.”
Golin for Toyota Racing PR
