Sheldon Creed’s Comments Highlight a Bigger Issue, or Do They?

This past weekend in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway, Sheldon Creed was piecing together another solid run.

Yet again, though, that solid run was cut short by other racers in circumstances that could have been avoided either by Creed or by the parties that he deemed at fault. Those parties just so happened to be Kaulig Racing cars, for the most part, who share a campus with Creed and the rest of Richard Childress Racing.

TobyChristie.com has the main story, but in this column I wanted to dive a bit deeper and analyze the item that is currently facing the series.

In the original story, Creed explains that from his point of view, there’s just not as much respect in the Xfinity Series garage anymore, and after looking back over the course of the last year and a half, he might just be right.

But is that such a bad thing?

Think back for a moment, if you will, to just last season — one of the most exciting in Xfinity to date.

There were big names at the top of the sport going back and forth, much like we have in the NASCAR Cup Series every weekend, but what made it so? Was it the clean racing, the crisp passes, the tight lines? No, it was the drama, and as much as we race fans may hate to admit it, we all watched so intently for the same reasons.

Ty Gibbs and Noah Gragson‘s back-and-forth late season battles, Gibbs turning his then-teammate Brandon Jones for the win in a race he had essentially already secured P2 in, all the way up to Gibbs beating out a trio of JR Motorsport cars for the championship; we watched for all of these reasons, because the series had a protagonist and antagonist and people loved it.

Now, though, the series has lost both of them, and who’s left to pick up the pieces? Young guys like Chandler Smith, who Creed credited with disrespecting him at the end of the Martinsville race.

Creed explained that RCR and Kaulig do more than share a campus. They hold post-race meetings together, talk strategy together, hell, they may even go to the bathroom together (that part is a joke, but you get my point).

Kaulig runs RCR cars. I would wager that half of the reason that Kaulig is one of the most interesting up and coming teams is due in large part to their connection with RCR, but to me, none of that matters when it comes to Saturdays.

To…