Sheldon Creed Continues Blistering Chase with Bristol Win

Sheldon Creed won the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday, his third of the 2026 season and second of the Chase. Creed held off William Sawalich and Brent Crews with the freshest tires on an overtime restart.

“Great call by my crew chief and engineer there to put tires on, and great stop by my guys to get me out first to be the first one on tiers,” Creed reflected. “To be honest I wasn’t really good all night. I struggled with the balance of our Ollie’s Chevrolet. Just hats off to these guys, they never give up.”

The No. 00 Haas Factory Team squad set Creed up with a tire advantage late in the race, but it was almost not enough. Second-place finisher William Sawalich had the lead inside of 10 laps to go and appeared to have enough left in his car to hold Creed off.

On that very penultimate restart, Jesse Love dove to the inside of Justin Allgaier before drifting up and putting him in the wall. Just a few laps later, Taylor Gray executed a similar move on him, damaging the No. 2 Chevrolet enough to send him to the tail of the lead lap. An overtime restart was then triggered after contact from Parker Retzlaff put Ryan Sieg in the wall.

A frustrated Allgaier confronted Love on pit road after the race, leaning into the window of Love’s car before the defending series champion exited his car. Allgaier finished fourth in spite of the contact, while Love fell to 17th. Love owned up to his mistake after the race, saying “pissed people off that I don’t need to be pissing off” per PRN.

Another unforgettable @ItsBristolBaby finish! pic.twitter.com/sJDpHCvcXp

— NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts (@NASCAROReillyAP) September 19, 2026

“[I’m] just questioning why,” Allgaier said of his conversation with Love. “I thought we raced clean all night and it wasn’t even — he didn’t even try to make the corner. Disappointing, it was a good rebound obviously.”

Chase Outlook

Sheldon Creed’s scorching hot start to the 2026 Chase has vaulted him to the top of the standings by 11 points. He passed long-time points leader Justin Allgaier last week with a second-place finish that put him three points up. Despite Allgaier earning 19 of 20 possible stage points, Creed extended his lead in the standings by eight.

Carson Kvapil won Stage 2, earning 19 stage points of his own to line up what could’ve been a major gain in the standings. Instead, a tire issue forced him down pit road en route to a 24th-place finish. Jesse Love is fourth in the standings at 41 points out, while Sam Mayer is a distant fifth with a 78-point deficit.

Race Results