KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Sheldon Creed picked up a cool $100,000 payday at Kansas Speedway on Saturday (April 18) by winning the Dash 4 Cash bonus, but he fell one spot short of his second victory of the season after being unable to overtake Taylor Gray in the closing laps.
After passing Brandon Jones for the lead on lap 99, Creed had control of the final stage up until the final round of pit stops, when Gray pitted a handful of laps earlier to leapfrog him for the top spot and move out to a three-second lead.
Creed was able to cut the gap from three seconds to just under a half-second with five to go, but he stalled out from there.
“I just ran out of time,” Creed told Frontstretch. “I was starting to play around with different lanes, and I kind of wish I could rip the fence in (turns) 1 and 2. It just didn’t feel like it was any faster.
“Kansas has been kind of weird the last two years, and we haven’t been able to run right against it, or it’s just been faster for us to turn down the hill. I ran the bottom of (turns) 3 and 4, with like five to go, and I feel like that was the closest I got.”
Lapped traffic helped Creed and third-place Justin Allgaier close some of the gap, but it wasn’t a factor once the laps ticked down and the battle for the top spot heated up.
“They just started to get out of the way as the three of us were kind of closing together,” Creed said.
In a way, it was lapped traffic that made the difference, as Gray navigated it well enough to keep Creed at bay and deny him the chance at making a move for the win.
“Taylor just did a really good job in traffic there, and he just never allowed me to get within two car lengths of them to make it hard for him,” Creed explained. “When you’re at like that five-to-eight car length (gap), I was just getting a lot of his dirty air, and it’s just challenging.”
The runner-up finish was the 16th of Creed’s O’Reilly Series career, but with a win at EchoPark Speedway two months ago and a Dash 4 Cash bonus tonight, Kansas was far from the demoralizing result that a second would have been for Creed in years past. Kansas marked Creed’s eighth top 10 in his last nine starts, and he sits second in the series’ points standings behind Allgaier.
The No. 00 team looks completely different from last year, and the catalyst for its early success dates back to offseason changes.
“I think just the guys in the offseason did a really good job with our cars,” Creed said. “Switching to Chevrolet, the Hendrick engine’s really good. I just feel like our cars are just better.”
Creed might have scored yet another second-place finish, but this one feels different. He’s now second in points with a win under his belt, and it’s looking like the former Craftsman Truck Series champion is starting to come into his own in NASCAR’s second series.
“I struggled from trucks for a couple years, and I just needed to understand the car more and what it likes and what I like, and I just feel like we’re building on that and doing a better and better job,” Creed said.
The first 10 races of 2026 have been a fantastic start, and now it’s a matter of how far Creed and Haas Factory Team can take it.
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