Darlington Raceway has a funny way of making a race car tell the truth.
For two stages Saturday night, Justin Allgaier and Carson Kvapil looked like they had the answers. Then came the final 40 laps, when the track began collecting payment for all that speed, and suddenly neither JR Motorsports Chevrolet looked particularly interested in being part of the conversation.
Sheldon Creed, meanwhile, had a different plan.
Creed and the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet got the tire strategy right, and Creed took full advantage of it on the long final run to win the Fleetio 200, opening the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase with a victory and putting himself squarely into the championship conversation.
Creed pulled away to roughly a three-second advantage over Corey Day and Sammy Smith in the closing laps, then did what Darlington demands of anyone who wants to leave with a trophy: he managed the lead, managed his tires and, most importantly, managed to avoid doing anything spectacularly stupid.
The result was Creed’s second career O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory and his second win of the 2026 season. His first came at EchoPark Speedway in February.
More importantly, the victory moved Creed to within seven points of Allgaier for the championship lead as the Chase got underway.
“Oh, this is everything to me,” Creed said in Victory Lane. “I’ve been so close here so many times, and I’ve got to pick a place on the schedule to get a win, this is it.”
The win was hardly a foregone conclusion.
Creed admitted he wasn’t particularly thrilled with his car early in the evening, but the Haas Factory Team kept working on it.
“To be honest, I wasn’t real happy with the car the first run, and we worked on it all night, and JT and the boys just gave me kind of what I needed there at the end, and I was able to get away,” Creed said.
That final adjustment, combined with the team’s tire strategy, turned out to be the difference.
While Creed’s Chevrolet came alive when it mattered, Allgaier and Kvapil went in the opposite direction.
The two JR Motorsports drivers spent much of the first two stages battling for the lead, trading positions and appearing to have the cars to beat. But as the laps wound down, the handling of both Chevrolets deteriorated.
The final 40-lap run was particularly unkind.
Kvapil slipped to 12th, while Allgaier endured an even tougher finish. The defending points leader smacked the wall in the closing laps and limped home 17th.
That sounds like a disaster for a championship leader.
It wasn’t.
Thanks to the Chase format, Allgaier still leaves Darlington atop the standings. But Creed’s victory means the margin is now only seven points, and suddenly the No. 00 team has gone from hoping to be part of the championship discussion to having a very legitimate seat at the table.
Corey Day had to work considerably harder for his runner-up finish.
The Chase driver was involved in a mid-race incident with William Sawalich, but Day recovered and drove his way back into contention. He ultimately finished second, giving him a valuable result on a night when merely surviving Darlington’s punishment was an achievement.
Brent Crews finished third, followed by Sammy Smith and Austin Hill.
Anthony Alfredo, Taylor Gray, Sam Mayer, Jeremy Clements and Brandon Jones completed the top 10.
The race also produced a particularly cruel ending for Rajah Caruth.
Caruth battled mechanical issues with his No. 88 JRM Chevrolet but managed to fight his way as high as sixth during the closing laps. With a strong finish suddenly within reach, Caruth instead ran out of fuel with fewer than 10 laps remaining.
He finished 26th, two laps down.
That’s Darlington for you. One minute you’re hunting for a top-five finish. The next, you’re coasting around hoping the engine doesn’t notice you’re out of gas.
For Creed, however, there was no such drama.
After spending much of the night trying to find the right balance, the team finally gave him a car he could use over the long run. Creed then turned that opportunity into a victory, holding off the late challengers and putting the No. 00 Chevrolet in Victory Lane when the stakes were at their highest.
The timing couldn’t have been much better.
“I don’t know where everyone stacked us, but hopefully we kind of put our name on the card, and hopefully we can make a run for this championship,” Creed said.
The answer is becoming pretty obvious.
They’ve put their name on the card.
And after one Chase race, Sheldon Creed is only seven points from the top.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase continues next Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway. The race is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET and will air on The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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