Sheldon Creed walked into the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase as the third seed, but a quiet third seed, and not necessarily a driver that many had circled to be able to disrupt the likes of championship favorites Justin Allgaier and Carson Kvapil. Well, the Haas Factory Team driver had something to say about that.
The driver of the No. 00 Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Chevrolet Camaro dominated the final stage of Saturday’s Fleetio 200 at Darlington Raceway, leading the final 53 laps en route to his second career victory, and an important win to kickstart his run at a championship.
“Oh, this is everything to me. I’ve been so close here so many times, and yeah, if I could pick a place on the schedule to get a win, this is it,” Creed told The CW post-race. “To be honest, wasn’t real happy with the car that first run. And yeah, we just worked on it all night,” Creed explained. “[Jonathan Toney] and the boys just gave me kind of what I needed there at the end, and I was able to just get away.”
Creed inherited the lead of the race via a pit road exchange at the end of Stage 2, where the Haas Factory Team crew got the Alpine, California-native the lead, and after a stellar restart, the 28-year-old driver drove away, holding off a hard-charging Corey Day for the top spot.
There was a point in the final run where Day was taking legitimate chunks out of the race-lead, but Day eventually began to fall off, finishing 2.961 seconds behind Creed. Brent Crews drove through the pack throughout the final green-flag run to finish third, with Sammy Smith and Austin Hill rounding out the top-five.
Anthony Alfredo had an extremely fast No. 96 Chevrolet for Viking Motorsports, even taking the lead on raw pace and winning Stage 2, before losing a handful of spots on pit road and dropping out of winning contention. Taylor Gray finished seventh, with Sam Mayer, Jeremy Clements, and Brandon Jones rounding out the top-10.
JR Motorsports drivers Justin Allgaier and Carson Kvapil appeared to be the class of the field on Saturday, but the long green-flag run to the end absolutely killed the handling on the racecars, as Kvapil dropped to 12th and Allgaier dropped to a dismal 17th, costing them both some major points.
Leaving Darlington, Allgaier holds a seven-point lead over Sheldon Creed in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series point standings, with Carson Kvapil in third, 19 points behind. Austin Hill and Corey Day round out the top-five.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series heads to World Wide Technology Raceway next weekend, on September 12 at 7:30 PM ET on The CW.
