Fresh Tires, Chaos Help Sheldon Creed Take O'Reilly Win at Bristol

Wow, on a night where it didn't look like Sheldon Creed was in the conversation for a race win, the Haas Factory Team driver utilized a late-race pit call for fresh tires and capitalized on others, who faltered in front of him in the closing laps, to pounce for the win in Friday night's Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

"Yeah, just great call by my crew chief and engineer there to put tires on," Creed said of the strategic late-race pit call which netted him a competitive advantage. "And great pit stop by my guys to get me out first to be the first one on tires. To be honest, I wasn't really good all night. Struggled with the balance on our Ollie's Chevrolet. Man, just hats off to these guys, we just never give up."

For Creed, who had just one win through the opening 160 races of his career, now has two wins over his last three starts. Creed's incredible wave of momentum has coincided perfectly with the start of the Chase for the Championship, as the driver of the No. 00 Chevrolet has an average finish of 1.33 through the opening three races of the championship fight.

Thanks to the newfound momentum, Creed padded the championship lead that he gained a week ago, as he holds an 11-point advantage over Justin Allgaier after the Food City 300.

With two wins in the opening three races of the Chase, does Creed feel he's a championship favorite now?

"I don't know if it makes us the title favorite, there's a long way to go. Six [races] to go, and yeah, I thought we were going to just lose some points tonight. I think winning kind of helps us salvage that a bit. I like to think we're a favorite. If not, we're at least talked about now."

William Sawalich, who has been embroiled in an on-track feud with Corey Day in recent weeks, came through the chaos in the closing laps with a runner-up finish, while Brent Crews finished third.

Justin Allgaier was miffed after contact from Jesse Love on the final restart of the race ruined his chances at victory. Allgaier would come home with a fourth-place finish on Friday night. After the race, Allgaier poked his head into the window of Love's No. 2 machine for a brief chat.

"Just questioning why," Allgaier said of what he said to Love after the race. "I don't know, really disappointed. I felt like we raced clean all night, and it was like, he didn't even try to make the corner."

Allgaier, who came into the Chase as the championship favorite, now finds himself chasing Creed for the point lead.

Corey Day would snag a fifth-place finish, while Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Parker Retzlaff, Dean Thompson, and Sammy Smith rounded out the top-10 finishers.

After another on-track scuffle with Taylor Gray after getting into it with Allgaier, Jesse Love would fade to a disappointing 17th-place finish.

"Yeah, he is," Love said when asked if Allgaier was justified to be frustrated with him. "Yeah, he is."

Love admitted that he had a mental lapse while battling with Allgaier for the lead, which led to the unraveling of his night and Allgaier's.

"I needed to run my best corner, and instead I got caught in the moment racing him. And in turn, that led me down a path to make an enemy that I didn't need to make. And [I made] a terrible decision that took ourselves out of contention to win," Love stated. "So, I'm just really frustrated with myself. I owe an apology to the No. 7 team, to my team, and everybody at Welcome, North Carolina."

Love, who won a week ago at Gateway, dropped to fourth in the Chase Grid and now sits 41 points behind Creed, the point leader.

NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase Grid

1. Sheldon Creed, 2,235 points
2. Justin Allgaier, -11
3. Carson Kvapil, -37
4. Jesse Love, -41
5. Sam Mayer, -78
6. Corey Day, -92
7. Sammy Smith, -92
8. Taylor Gray, -104
9. Austin Hill, -106
10. Parker Retzlaff, -111
11. Brandon Jones, -114
12. Rajah Caruth, -164

Next up for the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series is the Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, October 3. That race will be televised on The CW, and TV coverage is set to kick off at 7:30 PM ET.

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