Comeback Effort Nets Creed Sixth Place At Martinsville

Sheldon Creed (18) battles Aric Almirola for the lead at Martinsville Speedway. (Peter Casey/LAT for Toyota Racing photo)

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Sheldon Creed took his Joe Gibbs Racing team to a bounce-back sixth place finish Saturday at Martinsville Speedway in the penultimate NASCAR Xfinity Series race of the season.

Creed qualified eighth but had climbed forward and was running second to teammate Aric Almirola when he was tagged for speeding on pit road during his final pit stop under caution at lap 177.

The infraction dropped Creed to the tail end of the lead lap and meant that he was playing catch up over the final 68 laps once green-flag racing resumed.

Using the front bumper of his No. 18 Friends of Jaclyn Foundation Toyota GR Supra as needed to create passing lanes – and despite being involved in back-to-back cautions at laps 197 and 220 – Creed managed to work his way back inside the top 10 by the checkered flag, as Almirola went on to victory.

Saturday saw Creed earn 13 stage points along the way during the National Debt Relief 250 and marked his fourth top-10 finish in six Martinsville Xfinity Series starts. He finished sixth in both races this year.

Afterward, however, Creed was apologetic for the rough-and-tumble way he got back toward the front in the closing laps.

“We started off okay, and just kept making our car better and better there to have a shot at winning the race. Obviously, we were running second there and then we pitted, and I sped on pit road and had to go to the back. At that point I kind of just pulled the gloves off and wanted to get back toward the front,” noted Creed. “Just made a few mistakes and I wheel hopped a few times, and I seemed to hit somebody every time I did it.

“I hate being that person. It is embarrassing being the guy that is just running into everyone,” he continued. “That’s definitely not who I want to be or how I want to race; I just made mistakes trying too hard and took people with me.”

Creed sits sixth in Xfinity Series points with one race remaining in the season and will be in a tight battle with Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love to secure that points position during the finale at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway.

Coverage of the 200-mile season finale race from the one-mile desert oval is slated for Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.