By: Ashley McCubbin

This past weekend at Watkins Glen International, Sheldon Creed’s off-track excursion in the bus loop may have looked like he was soaring for new heights.

It is something he is used to, thanks to his Stadium Super Truck background. Though, perhaps it fits the way the season has gone for him, too.

Each weekend this year, Creed has put the No. 00 Chevrolet Camaro inside the top-10, challenging for wins and top-fives on a weekly basis. The consistency has placed him second in the standings behind Justin Allgaier, with an average finish of 8.2 and six top-five finishes.

When asked to grade his season prior to the Mission 200 at the Glen, Creed said it would be an A- / B+.

“I feel like we’ve been really good,” he told NewsFromThePits.com. “But I feel like we can capitalize on having fast race cars like we have and would love to have a couple more wins than we have already, but, it’s been good. We’ve obviously been really consistent and run in the top 10 the last nine weeks in a row.”

The season has already included a lot of highlights, including Creed’s first trip to victory lane at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“That was awesome,” he commented. “Obviously I’ve been trying for a long time with different teams and to finally be able to do that and do it in the second race of the season was incredible to not really have to stress about it or worry anymore. Just go race and try to be the best we can every week.”

Creed’s performance is a testament to the work put in via the Haas Factory Team. His teammate Sam Mayer has also ran up front each week, only finding himself back to 12th in the standings as a result of bad luck.

“I mean, I feel like we’re both pretty laid back so that’s nice, and I feel like we’re both easy to work with,” Creed shared. “The teams also work well together, but I would say the biggest thing is he’s just laid back so he’s easy to talk to and ask questions about. I feel like we fight a lot of the same things or we think a lot of the same things about the car, so that helps a lot. We’re not chasing different ideas or fighting different things; we can focus on the same thing.”

Now as he looks to close the points gap to Allgaier, he feels they are pretty close on set-up.

“It’s just kind of fine-tuning little things with the car every week and then just maximizing our days like with strategy and just everything that goes on during the race,” he explained. “Playing everything right and executing is probably the biggest part, and I feel like we’ve done a good job of that. But just trying to do that every week can be challenging. So I say maximizing that, and just kind of limiting mistakes.”

There’s also continued excitement, in knowing the stretch of tracks that are coming up over the next couple weeks, beginning with Dover International Speedway this weekend.

“I really do like most tracks,” he commented. “Dover makes me excited, Charlotte coming up and Nashville, – I like to say everywhere, but the super speedways. Not that I don’t like superspeedways, just that they’re not my favorite. Whoever came up with the schedule this year, I feel like it’s a really good one, and probably the best one I’ve seen since maybe I’ve been in the O’Reilly Auto Parts series.”

If there was a way to make the schedule better, though, it would be adding New Hampshire back on the schedule.

“I loved going up there,” he commented. “I would obviously say Fontana, but Fontana doesn’t exist anymore, but I love that place. We’re going back to Chicago – so excited about that, but yeah, if I could get one place back, I would go back to New Hampshire.”