By: Ashley McCubbin

After having his best season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with a sixth-place finish in points alongside 16 top-five’s and 23 top-10 finishes, Sheldon Creed is preparing for his fourth full-time campaign – except with a different organization than the year before. The Californian makes the move from Joe Gibbs Racing to Haas Factory Team as a teammate to Sam Mayer.

Creed recently spoke about the move, his thoughts entering the season, and more with NEWS FROM THE PITS.

What are your thoughts going into the season?

I am excited for another year of racing, obviously with Haas Factory Team and Ford. It was a fun off-season getting to know all of my new guys and we’re all excited to get to Daytona and start our season.

I was just going to ask. What are your thoughts going into Daytona?

I mean, Speedway is racing really challenging and you just have to make all the right decisions to keep yourself towards the front and hopefully have a decent amount of stage points to start your year with. But there’s a lot of unknowns which makes it difficult. Obviously there’s crashes which take multiple cars and you just have to make the right decision to not be involved.

Past Daytona, what track on the schedule are you excited to get back to?

I would say at the beginning of the season, I am excited for Homestead(-Miami Speedway), Darlington (Raceway), COTA (Circuit of the Americas). I would say Darlington is my favorite, but I enjoy a lot of different race tracks.

We’ve seen you come close to winning so many times these past couple seasons. What would it mean to break through this year?

That would be amazing. It’s been frustrating, honestly, to be as close as I have been and cautions come out at the end, something happens on pit road, or whatever may happen. I may make a mistake to take us out of it. I have learned a bunch of different ways to lose them, but unfortunately to make it to (NASCAR) Cup Series, you have to win races at this level. Definately need to try and win numerous races this year.

New team this year, as you mentioned. What is it about Haas Factory team that feels right for you?

#18: Sheldon Creed, Joe Gibbs Racing, Friends of Jaclyn Foundation Toyota Supra, #1: Sam Mayer, JR Motorsports, 10X Health Chevrolet Camaro

Good question. I think looking ahead at Cup racing and kind of what manufactures and teams are full and probably not going to lose any drivers, and you look at that, and I see Haas possibly growing as the end of goal is Cup. But I think the biggest thing is it’s already a team put together. They have been there for two years with Cole Custer, where my previous teams in Xfinity have grown together in just one year deals. So I’m excited to have a team that’s always been there, and has some experience to work with.

You are going to have Sam Mayer as a teammate. What are your thoughts on working with him?

I’ve actually really enjoyed Sam so far. He’s quite a bit younger than me – he’s five years younger than me, but I was actually teammates back at GMS (Racing) when I was racing Trucks; he raced the ARCA car full-time and did a handful truck races. I already got to be around him quite a bit then. We have been both working out together in the gym, and just going over simulator team and it’s been really enjoyable so far.

Where do you feel that you could improve as a driver to be even better?

Oh Gosh, there’s so many ways to improve all the time. Everyone is just getting better and better and you just try to learn little things every time you get in the car to make yourself better and just being opened minded, not being married to the same ideas at the race track. There’s so many different driving styles and I probably look onto Cup guys a lot. Obviously (Kyle) Larson has been one of the best the last handful of years, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney – there’s so much to learn from all of them and they all drive a little differently. So you need to combine everything you can learn from all of them and apply it.

I remember your days with the Stadium Super Trucks. What’s the biggest memory that stands out?

Those were really fun times coming through my high school years, but I would say winning an X-Games Gold medal. That was pretty awesome.

So what did you learn from that experience that is a benefit now?

The Stadium truck is very difficult to drive. It doesn’t do anything really good, if that makes sense. It just doesn’t handle great, it has a lot of power, not a lot of grip, and they’re not really meant to race on asphalt race tracks. Just a lot of car control came from that and racing all the time growing up, all that applies to now. We obviously don’t slide around a whole lot, but you’re more comfortable with it.

Is there anything else in motorsports that you’d like to try?

I would. I love dirt racing. I have a couple micro sprints of my own that I race locally. They race mid-week here at Millbridge (Raceway). But I think whenever my time on asphalt comes to an end, I’d really love to race dirt late models, and maybe a dirt sprint car – I at least want to try it, test one. I really like dirt late models and I love sprint cars, but I don’t know if being married with kids now if I’m too late to the game and they’re a little dangerous. So i think late models would be something I’d like to do full-time once done asphalt racing.

I was going to say that talking about the micros, you’ve gotten some time on the track already this year. What are your thoughts looking back to the Tulsa Shootout?

I hadn’t been to the Tulsa Shootout in two or three years and it’s really hard. There’s like 415 entries in the stock classes, and then a little less in the outlaw motor classes. You’re just trying to be the top 24 out of 400 so it’s extremely challenging and it’s a really long week. You race from Tuesday to Saturday, so it was fun. I got to make both non-wing A-Mains, and I don’t know if I will go back until maybe my kids start racing. It’s a long week and it’s expensive to go for not a lot of winnings payout wise.

I have the Chilli Bowl on my radar. I’ve never been and I’ve talked about going for almost 10 years now. So I am going to do my best to put some funds together and try and go run some west coast midget races at the end of the year and then the Chilli Bowl.

If you could race one-on-one against any past or present NASCAR driver at any track for a 10 lap shootout, who would it be and where?

Oh Gosh….. I don’t know. I’d like to race numerous different ones, but I think the coolest one for me to share at track with would be Jimmie Johnson. We’re from the same town, and our families are close. So it’d probably be him at Darlington.

With the Clash being at Bowman Grey this year, do you think NASCAR should go to more bullring style tracks? Also, do you think Xfinity and Truck should do something similar to the Clash to open their season?

Great questions, actually. To answer your first part, I think a lot of people and a lot of fans like short track racing so I think it’s cool, especially stadium style like Bowman Gray. That place sells out every Saturday night for the local shows. So I expect it to be very big this weekend. I think the Cup car probably needs a little work – probably horsepower, and a tire that wears out more. They just have a lot of grip and they don’t slow down so it makes the racing a little challenging, it seems like. Obviously, I haven’t raced a Cup car at a short track so I don’t know but outside looking in. It’d be cool to see the car a little racier.

The second part – yeah, I think that’d be awesome to have something to kick off our season with no points, money, payout. I think it just kind of creates some excitement about the season. I don’t know where they’d take us – maybe follow Cup to wherever they go. I feel like it’ll probably be Bowman Gray for a couple years, but I like the fact that they’re starting to move it around and putting light on some of these local short tracks around the country.