Creed Earns Pole, Finishes Fourth At Pocono Raceway

Sheldon Creed in action at Pocono Raceway. (Lesley Ann Miller/LAT for Toyota Racing photo)

LONG POND, Pa. – Sheldon Creed converted a pole qualifying effort into his eighth top-five finish of the season during Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series stop at Pocono Raceway.

After leading the field to green in the Explore the Pocono Mountains 225, Creed drifted back as far as ninth early in stage one, but kept himself inside the top 10 for the majority of the 90-lap race.

Creed earned five stage points between the first two stages, then began to rally back through the field during the second half of the race.

After making his final pit stop at lap 60, Creed cycled through to seventh for the first of three restarts inside the final 17 laps. A power move to the inside of turn one on the lap-79 green flag allowed Creed to surge up to fourth place, a position that he’d hold to the end of the race.

Creed lined up on the outside of the second row for the four-lap sprint to the finish, pushing eventual race winner Cole Custer to the lead, but got stuck on the outside of a three-wide battle with Austin Hill and Sammy Smith after that.

Though he wasn’t able to advance further after clearing back into fourth, Creed was still pleased with the end result after battling a tight-handling race car for much of the afternoon.

“Yeah, always happy with a top-five [finish],” noted Creed. “Had to battle there, the first half (of the race) was a struggle. Sat on the pole and fell really hard, just way too tight there. And then, jumped the fence and kind of free the rest of the day, but was able to capitalize on some good restarts there at the end and get myself in position and held on.

“I don’t know if I was a fourth-place car at the end, but just fortunate to have good restarts there at the end and kind of fall into line,” Creed added. “Proud of everyone, and we’re going to keep working. Another top-five is great, but we’re still searching for that first win.”

The 26-year-old Alpine, Calif., native leaves the Pocono Mountains eighth in the regular season point standings and 10th on the provisional playoff grid, 77 points ahead of the cutoff line with seven races remaining before the postseason reset.

Creed and the Xfinity Series field will return to action Saturday, July 21 at historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway as NASCAR returns to the 2.5-mile oval for the first time since 2020.

Broadcast coverage of the Pennzoil 250 at the Brickyard is slated for 3:30 p.m. ET, live on USA, the IMS Radio Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.