AVONDALE, Ariz. – Sheldon Creed’s lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase disappeared with the flip of a switch.
Creed’s mood-dampening 32nd-place finish Saturday at Phoenix Raceway altered the complexion of the postseason with just three races left in the 2026 campaign, opening an avenue for defending series champ Jesse Love to grab the reins with a dominating victory in the Timberland Pro 200. Creed entered Saturday’s 200-miler two points up on Love, but tumbled to fourth place in the O’Reilly Series standings with a 59-point deficit to overcome.
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The culprit? An ignition glitch that caused Creed’s No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet to sputter out of power as he tried to save fuel during the Stage 1 intermission. When Creed hit the switch to shut the engine off as a fuel-conservation measure, the car would not re-fire.
The 29-year-old driver lost three laps after a wrecker pushed the No. 00 Chevy back to pit road and after his HFT crew scrambled under the hood trying to diagnose the gremlin. He only regained one of those lost laps before the checkered flag.
“Yeah, I mean just normal under caution, shutting it off and firing it back up, and yeah, shut it off there in the middle of (Turns) 1 and 2, and I went to re-fire, and there was nothing,” said Creed, who started fourth and finished second to Love after the first stage. “Then I recycled the power a few different times, and then yeah, I got to pit road, sort of looking at everything, and then started messing with the steering wheel buttons and everything, and then it just refired. So I didn’t shut it off the rest of the night. Yeah, bummer. Our car was really fast, especially after we got to work on it that first run.”
No. 00 crew chief Jonathan Toney was also among those looking for answers, hoping they might arrive in the days ahead.
“I think when we get to the shop, we’ll dig into it and figure out exactly what happened,” Toney told NASCAR.com. “It was something in the ignition that cut it off, and we were able to kind of reset things and get it to fire back up and luckily didn’t have any more issues the rest of the night. But man, had a really good Ollie’s Chevrolet for sure, and Sheldon did a good job getting back up there. We just needed a couple more cautions to kind of help get back a couple of those laps. When you lose two or three laps like that, it just … you’re just kind of along for the ride at that point.”
Creed had quickly risen to the top of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series heap, starting off The Chase presented by Mobil 1 with finishes of first, second and first in the opening three races. The rest of the 12-driver postseason field had made incremental gains in the last two races, when Creed placed 13th at Las Vegas and then came home third with just one stage point added to his total last Sunday at Charlotte.
That advantage has suddenly transformed into negative numbers, with three vastly different tracks remaining on the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule – Talladega Superspeedway next Saturday, Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 31 and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 7.
“Yeah, just move on,” said Creed, asked how he’d regroup. “I mean, it’s Talladega, so anything can happen. Martinsville, we’ve been pretty decent at over the years, and Homestead, I know we’ll be good. So yeah, I look forward to all of them. Bummer that it worked out this way, but honestly, I’m happy our car was really fast all night. I wish I could have got up there, and I wish I could have battled with the 2 (Love) all night.”
The roles will be flipped for Creed come next Saturday at Talladega (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, ESPN Unlimited, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where the Haas Factory Team driver will be a pursuer instead of a points protector. Instead of complicating the team’s Chase strategy, Toney says it actually makes it more fundamental.
“I mean, I think you go in there to Talladega with hope because chaos can happen, right?” Toney said. “Go to Martinsville, too. Chaos can happen, and I’ve told him that my goal was honestly, if we can start the last stage at Homestead within 19 points or less, I’ll put it on my man’s shoulders to go out there and win the race at Homestead, and if we do that, we win the championship. So it kind of simplifies it in a way: We’ve gotta go win three races. So we go win three races and get stage points, then we’ll be where we need to be.
“So you know, it’s disheartening from the standpoint of just having bad luck, but I try to look at the bright thing. We had a fast race car, and if we continue to do that and put our guy in position, then anything can happen.”