After 93 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, Sheldon Creed has 11 runner-up finishes — and zero wins. Saturday, he ran down his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell from three seconds back and passed him for the lead with just nine laps to go. It appeared he was driving away with that elusive win when the caution flag flew for A.J. Allmendinger slamming the outside wall, and forced the race into overtime.
The entire field filed down pit road to get fresh tires for the two-lap shootout. However, a slow stop cost Creed dearly, dropping him from the lead down to third. He restarted behind the duo of Bell and Cole Custer. Exiting Turn 2, Bell and Custer became locked together. The two cars shot down the track and it seemed as though a wreck was unavoidable, but they managed to escape unscathed. Somehow, they didn’t lose any positions either.
Bell skipped away, earning his 19th career NASCAR Xfinity Series win. Custer crossed the line just a few car lengths back in second, and Creed had to settle for third.
“That was wild, for sure,” said Bell.” Darlington is such a tough race track. Off of (Turn) 2, whether you’re on the bottom or the top, it flushes you to the wall and you kind of get a bit of a wiggle. Once again, I feel terrible for Sheldon, to essentially win the race — he passed me on the long run, and then to lose the lead on pit road is a big bummer.”
Creed was completely dejected after another shocking loss. “I lost one the same way a few years ago. This has always been a really good place for me and I’ve always loved racing here. Man, I don’t know what to do to be any better than that. I feel like I put in one of my best performances today. I loved my pit crew and they do a great job for us. I can’t blame that on them. We just got beat on pit road today. Bummer.”
Chase Elliott and Sammy Smith rounded out the top-five. Shane van Gisbergen improved on a 15th-place result in his first Xfinity race at Darlington earlier this year, earning a seventh-place finish on Saturday.
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