Four years of heartbreak and close calls were washed away in just two turns, as Sheldon Creed finally scored his first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory at EchoPark Speedway on Saturday (Feb. 21) in his 138th series start.
With a series record 15 runner-up finishes without a win, it was a matter of wondering when, or if, Creed would break through. That moment finally happened at EchoPark in dramatic fashion to boot, as Creed entered the final two turns in third behind Austin Hill and Ross Chastain. Chastain darted to the bottom entering turn 3 with a huge run, and Hill pulled a late block that nearly turned him in front of the entire field. Both cars lost their momentum after the collision, and the stars aligned for Creed to zip by the two leaders and take the checkered flag.
Parker Retzlaff tied his career-best O’Reilly finish in second, while Nick Sanchez, Corey Day and Jesse Love rounded out the top five. Chastain faded to sixth at the finish, while Hill made an incredible save to on the apron to gather up his car and cross the line in 12th.
The Winners
After bouncing between Richard Childress Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing and Haas Factory Team while facing intense scrutiny over his lack of wins and his barrage of runner-up results, Creed can sleep comfortably knowing that the noise has been silenced and that this win is only the beginning.
He leaves EchoPark third in series points and, most importantly, as a winner. Earning win number one is perhaps the hardest to achieve of them all, and now that Creed has crossed that hurdle and ridded himself of that “choker” label, we could see the flood gates open. He’s shown he can win a race, and that knowledge is a massive shot in the arm for the confidence and chemistry of the No. 00 team going forward.
One spot behind him was Retzlaff, who now sits fifth in points after recording finishes of 14th and second to start the season. Saturday’s runner-up marks the best finish in Viking Motorsports’ short history, and Retzlaff is having a splendid start to the year after a disappointing 2025 saw him DNF eight times and fail to qualify for another.
Sanchez, who was out of a ride in January, impressed with a third-place finish for AM Racing, all while driving one of just two Fords in the field. With his first O’Reilly win coming at EchoPark last July, Sanchez has solidified himself as one of the best drivers at the track and finally has some positive momentum going after his nightmare of an offseason.
And while he’ll leave disappointed with sixth, Chastain came oh-so-close to scoring his first O’Reilly win since 2019 and giving Jordan Anderson his second win as a team owner. The final two turns of the race will be a frustrating “what could’ve been” moment for both Chastain and the team, but he continues to impress in his sporadic appearances for smaller teams in the series.
The Losers
A fourth-place finish for a rookie would normally be considered a fantastic day, but that was far from the case for Day, as he was the catalyst for not one but two major accidents that evening.
The first came on lap five, when Day made an aggressive three-wide move to the middle on Ryan Sieg, which triggered a wreck that took out both Sieg brothers, Blaine Perkins and Harrison Burton.
The Sieg’s weren’t happy about how the incident went down, and both Ryan and Kyle had some choice words for Day after exiting the care center.
The second incident came past halfway when Day had a flat tire in turn 3 and collected the leading JR Motorsports teammates of Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier. Hard to fault Day in this case, but it was an unfortunate stroke of luck that the crash ended up collecting Hendrick Motorsports’ closest allies.
Nevertheless, Day has had a rough start to the season after a shaky season opener at Daytona International Speedway and the early crash at EchoPark. He’s still relatively new to the series, but it doesn’t take long for a driver to develop a reputation if they are unable to clean things up.
Hill and RCR have become so dominant at the superspeedways that any race they don’t win is a disappointment. The No. 21 car wasn’t as good as it was at Daytona, as Hill “only” led a race-high 34 of 163 laps. But he still showed up when it mattered the most, as he made a clutch pass on Chastain to take the lead entering the white flag lap. Things were looking up until the final two turns, when he cost himself a shot at a sixth Atlanta win with his poorly timed block.
The fact that finishing 12th, leading the most laps, leading the white flag lap and pulling off an incredible save is a sham of a race for Hill speaks testaments to how skilled he is at superspeedways. They are the most unpredictable tracks on the schedule, and yet it’s still a shock when he doesn’t win at them.
If we’re judging off of race performance, Sam Mayer would be on the good side for winning the pole and overcoming a three-lap deficit to finish seventh. But he ultimately made the headlines for an embarrassing snafu, as he destroyed the splitter of his car in the wet grass on the cooldown lap after congratulating his teammate on winning the race.
In the long run this mistake means absolutely nothing, but it’s never fun to have a “Not Top 10” moment go viral at your own expense.
Fuel For Thought
We are so, so lucky to have The CW booth.
Adam Alexander, Parker Kligerman and Jamie McMurray delivered one hell of a call for the final lap. They were descriptive, they were intense, they were emotional and excited in the right moments, and Alexander delivered the cherry on top with his call of Creed taking the checkered flag.
The CW booth is one of the best trios we’ve had in recent memory, and the network’s production rivals Amazon Prime Video for the top spot in the present-day NASCAR.
Not every race is fortunate enough to have a stellar broadcast booth (looking at you, Truck Series), so let’s enjoy every moment of these three working together while we can.
Paint Scheme of the Week
It always fun to see food-sponsored cars at the racetrack, and while it didn’t make it to the finish, Kvapil’s red and white Arby’s car pulled out all the stops with roast beef sandwiches and curly fries on the site.
Kvapil also gets bonus points for his firesuit, which featured every form of meat known to mankind.
Where to Next?
The O’Reilly Series heads to the heart of the Lone Star State for the first road course race of the season at Circuit of the Americas.
The Focused Health 250 will begin at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday, Feb. 28, with coverage provided by The CW.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf