Story By: SAM MAHONEY / TOYOTA RACING – TALLADEGA, AL – Sheldon Creed led Toyota with a sixth-place finish in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Creed overcame a late-race spin with his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 GR Supra to earn his fifth top-10 finish this season.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Talladega Superspeedway
Race 8 of 33 – 300.58 miles, 113 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Jesse Love*
2nd, Riley Herbst*
3rd, Anthony Alfredo*
4th, Leland Honeyman*
5th, Brennan Poole*
6th, SHELDON CREED
15th, TAYLOR GRAY
25th, CHANDLER SMITH
34th, RYAN TRUEX
37th, JEFFREY EARNHARDT
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
SHELDON CREED, No. 18 Friends of Jaclyn Foundation Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
Can you talk about the final two restarts and how you were able to finish sixth?
“The 48 (Parker Kligerman) ran out of fuel right when we got to the line. I checked up a little bit for the 2 (Jesse Love) just to push him through there. I don’t know what happened, but we all stacked up and it turned me. I had to come to pit road and get tires and I think I restarted 16th or 17th. I was 13th entering turn 3 so to finish sixth after the day we had with our GR Supra, I’ll take that all day.”
RYAN TRUEX, No. 20 The Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 34th
What happened in the incident that took you out of the race early?
“The pushes were getting more aggressive, the blocks were getting more aggressive. The whole field was three-wide I think, and everybody was just trying to shuffle to the front before green flag stops started. I couldn’t tell if somebody tried to throw a block or if somebody got hooked or what. I saw the 9 (Brandon Jones) backwards and smoke and I tried to avoid him, and I just barely got him. It must have hit him perfectly with my right front tire to just break the right front upper and cut the tire. I was hoping it was just a flat tire, but we brought it down pit road and the right front was broken. It sucks because we really didn’t have much damage. I think I just hit him in the perfect angle to kill our car. It’s a bummer. Our GR Supra was really, really good. I think all four of us were really good. Shoutout to JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) for building fast cars. We’ve struggled a little bit (at superspeedways) over the years and that was for sure the best car I’ve had at a superspeedway.”