Sheldon Creed has had a consistent season and yet not his best. Technically, he holds the record for the most P2 finishes this year. Six times Creed has found himself in the runner-up position. However, the #18 driver would consider that more of a ‘bane’ than a ‘boon.’ Despite sixteen top-5s, Creed has not won a single race this year. Also, the P2 scare is not his only curse. The California native is infamous for not being a team player.

In fact, when Sheldon Creed left Richard Childress Racing last year for Joe Gibbs Racing, Austin Hill took a sigh of relief. In fact, Hill had said, “ I cannot wait for him to get out of RCR…Just cannot wait for him to get over Joe Gibbs Racing, and I don’t have to put up with that (expletive) no more.” And his JGR teammate Chandler Smith agrees that Creed tried to sabotage Smith’s final race of the season.

Chandler Smith has had enough of Sheldon Creed

Well, in the 2023 Martinsville race, Austin Hill was in a must in a situation to make it to the championship 4, but Creed raced him too hard in the final stages; they had contact, and the former spun him and caused multiple cars to wreck, finishing his run in a DNF and his season in 5th position. Whereas Sheldon Creed finished yet again in P2, perhaps that’s when the curse started.

And in the recent Pheonix race, Chandler Smith in turn 1 was spun after having contact with Creed, adding frustration to his already disappointing season. Naturally, he lashed out on the radio saying, “I mean what the (expletive) dude! You’re not gonna get me a lane you jackass?”  while his pit crew tried to calm him, they asked Smith if he needed anything, to which he replied, “No, I just need teammates that don’t act like a bunch of jackasses!” 

Sheldon Creed couldn’t have chosen a worse time to engage Smith. The #81 is already frustrated to not make it to the championship 4 after a tussle with Cole Custer in the Martinsville Eliminator. On top of that, this could turn out to be the last season of his career, as the Georgia native does not have a ride for 2025. This is probably the reason why he was left even more frustrated.

In the post-race interview, Smith dwelled on the emotions throughout the race, he said, “It was definitely..I don’t know emotion filled a little bit just the whole weekend we’ve had such a great season and last weekend’s what it was and wasn’t able to advance to the final four. And was really good practice had a solid qualifying and honestly our race today was all over the place. By having bad stops on pit roads just being slow on pit road losing track position um getting wrecked by our teammate coming back through the field getting ran pretty bad by our teammate once again. And having to fight and Clawback our way to the front and just never fully recovered honestly until the green-white checker came so I would have definitely loved to seeing another 50 laps thing. Cause I still felt like we had the best car but wasn’t ever really able to showcase it until the end of stage one.”

Even Sheldon Creed after the race spoke about the incident and clarified that it was unintentional and just part of racing hard.

Sheldon Creed’s version of the tussle with Chandler Smith

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After the incident, Creed explained how he could not anticipate the #81’s line causing the wreck. He said, “So I fell back there a little bit and then yeah on one of the restarts I think we were two or three laps into it. And the 81 was running the flat so I was you know running the line and then I would run the flat on exit with them…so I didn’t even see him and then he was with me and I thought he was going to go run the flat again so I went down to the line so he probably didn’t have a lot of room and then I think he got loose or he just cooked it into me. And it spun him out so I guess the race deal I’m sure he’s not happy he usually isn’t.”

But Creed wasn’t the only one who was racing hard. Chandler Smith had a scuffle with Justin Allgaier as the #7 and the 2024 Xfinity champion did not like how hard Smith raced him. On the radio, the JR Motorsports driver was heard saying, “The 81 wonders why he doesn’t have a ride for next year. My blood pressure is high because people don’t get it.” And moments after this, Creed spun him! It probably being his last ride, Smith was just desperate and aggressive for a good finish.

He perhaps did the same with #18 and that led to them contacting. However, Creed took all the blame for it but he too was racing for positions and thought that it was just part and parcel of racing hard. “I thought we were fine just I probably was shallower than I could have been but I assumed he was on the flat so I mean you can’t you just can’t see him and it happens so fast so I didn’t mean to do that.And he was on my door and I was like loose into him. So I yeah push him back two times I guess but it’s like egregious or intentional you know we’re just racing hard for positions that the easiest time to get him is on restarts.” 

In the race, Smith finished 5th and Creed finished 7th. The run was also Creed’s last for SHR as he is moving to the newly formed Haas-factory team next season in the Xfinity Series. Where do you think Chandler Smith will end up next year? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.