Ben Rhodes Rues Missed Opportunity to Snatch the NASCAR Truck Race Win from Sheldon Creed

During the Buckle Up your Truck 225 race, Sheldon Creed had just completed Stage 2 of the Truck Series. Sadly for him and the rest of the pack, adverse weather conditions interrupted them and put the race on hold. In the end, NASCAR awarded Creed with the win, leaving Ben Rhodes to kick himself.

In fact, the rain caught everyone by surprise, because Creed confessed that nobody told him that it was going to rain. Since the red flags waved at the end of Stage 2, the rules consider the race official.

This is possibly a similar concept to F1’s 75% race distance rule, beyond which a race is considered complete.

Following a 20-minute delay, the stewards declared the race as complete and handed Creed his first win of the season. The 22-year old Creed had a mountain to climb from seventh but clawed his way up into the lead.

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Ben Rhodes wonders what could have been

Behind Creed, Ben Rhodes ended the race in second place in spite of a penalty during pre-race inspection. Rhodes confessed that he was a little frustrated at the truncated race.

He knew that his team was faster than Creed and he made the mistake of giving him some space on the last restart.

In other circumstances, he would have pinned him down in a race-winning move. Rhodes admitted that he was ‘trying to be smart’ because he knows what Sheldon Creed is capable of.

Rhodes insisted that he did his level best to take care of his truck. However, hindsight says that he gave away what could have been an easy win.

Rhodes did not have an easy race on his hands and battled his way to the lead by Lap 47. In addition to that, he had a small scare on Lap 13 when Codie Rohrbaugh crashed into the wall. As Rohrbaugh’s out-of-control truck slid back down, Rhodes was almost in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fortunately, some quick thinking and reflexes ensured that he lived to race on and challenge for the win.