Sheldon Creed among Truck Series contenders looking to bounce back at Talladega
Last Friday‘s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway turned the playoff picture upside down.
RELATED: Truck Series playoff standings | Talladega schedule
Defending series champion Sheldon Creed is among those who will try to climb back onto the right side of the elimination line when the series visits Talladega Superspeedway for Saturday‘s Chevrolet Silverado 250 (1 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Creed was wiped out in a late crash at Vegas that also eliminated playoff driver Chandler Smith. Creed was credited with a 36th-place result and fell five points behind Matt Crafton — part of a 1-2-3-4 ThorSport Racing finish — in the battle for the final position in the Championship 4.
Creed has one top 10 in two Talladega starts in the Truck Series, but he views Saturday‘s race with optimism.
“I think we have a good opportunity to overcome last weekend’s mistakes,” Creed said. “Statistically, I’m not that great of a superspeedway racer, but I always enjoy racing on these types of tracks.
“I think that in order to be competitive on Saturday, we need to race aggressive from the start, but we can’t afford to get ourselves in trouble. If we can walk away with some solid stage points and a good finish, I’ll be a pretty happy guy as we look forward to inching our way closer to Phoenix.”
Regular-season champion John Hunter Nemechek also had a rough night in Vegas, finishing 33rd after experiencing electrical issues on his No. 4 Toyota. Thanks to a large playoff point cushion, however, Nemechek remains second in the standings, just six points behind current leader Ben Rhodes, who rose to the top of the grid with a runner-up result last Friday.
