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NASCAR GANDER RV & OUTDOORS TRUCK SERIES: LUCAS OIL 150November 6, 2020Sheldon CreedAvondale, Arizona THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by our Gander Truck Series champion for 2020, that's Sheldon Creed. Sheldon, I just watched the video again of the last two laps. Take us through that. SHELDON CREED: Yeah, I was planning on running third for the championship there, fourth in the race. Caution come out. Jeff and I talked about it a little on the radio. Figured we had nothing to lose. We were going to run fourth in the championship at worse, we were already third. Wanted to pit and at least have a shot there. Four tires, no fuel. We tightened it way up because I was extremely free. Just had a plan to run the bottom and just try to pick off as many guys as I could. Was trying to watch where they were. Was trying to watch the 18 because I was on the inside of him. I was trying to clear him right away because I didn't want to get free underneath on exit. I was able to do that. I was kind of watching up the track a little bit. I'm seeing the 51 just bomb slide his way in there. I need to watch the replay again to see what happened, but seemed like the 51 slid up the raceway and checked the whole line up, the 98 up. I was able to get to the gas extremely fast, almost be even with them. Yeah, just got clear off of four there and had to put together a good lap. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Sheldon. Q. The term 'asterisk' has been thrown a lot to sports champions in 2020. How should a champion be defined in a year as different as this one? SHELDON CREED: I don't even know. That's big words for me. I just drive racecars on the weekends (smiling). Just incredible we were able to do it. I had a lot of confidence coming into today. Man, I was just frustrated watching the 23 drive away from us. I was just so free. We tightened it up every stop. I don't know, just be free in, free on exit. I was getting frustrated watching him drive away from us. I settled in there, this is what we have. We have next year to try again. To get a chance like that on a restart and execute is just incredible that we got it done. What was that word you used? Asterisk? Q. Like a star, an asterisk. SHELDON CREED: Homeschooled (laughter). Q. Can you explain what does Josh Wise do that makes you better? I understand fitness and stuff, but is the more mental? Are you doing day‑long fasts that we've heard other drivers doing? How does that help you in the situation you were in tonight? SHELDON CREED: Yeah, I mean, we've done three‑day fasts, whatever. That has nothing to do with driving. That's just on the physical side of things. I'd say just watch video with him every week with our teammates, talk it over, watch a lot of Cup stuff on what those guys do. Restarts, pit road. Just focus on all the details with Josh, what he thinks. Just honestly talking and watching video for a couple hours during the week, I think that's helped a lot for me. Just absorbing information as it comes. Like learning something or watching something on the film, then going and trying to do it in the race, just trying to perfect that. I think that's where Josh comes in. Then just motivation, confidence he gives all of us. Yeah, Josh is great. Q. One of the things that has been brought up a lot was how Josh Wise has positively helped your career. Another person who has been pretty key is Jeff Stankiewicz, your crew chief. How has Jeff really helped your career over the last couple of years? SHELDON CREED: It's actually funny. Me and Jeff's relationship started, I was at MDM. Called me the night before Chicagoland, racing ARCA, part‑time in 2017. He was like, Hey, man, I'm your crew chief, I'll see you tomorrow. That's literally how we met, over the phone. We were terrible the first weekend, then almost won the next two weekends out. I was overly aggressive, had the fastest car there, just threw wins away like I did back in the day or still do even. Jeff has been great. I don't know, we just hit it off. We trust each other. We work well together. We're really good on the racetrack together as crew chief and driver. Then we have a really good friendship outside of the racetrack. Yeah, it's great with that. I forgot the first part of your question with Josh. Q. That was just adding on how Josh has positively helped your career. SHELDON CREED: Okay. Q. Your pit crew has been lights out all season, again tonight. What do you have to say about their efforts all season? Do you feel they helped in this championship? SHELDON CREED: Absolutely. GMS is probably the biggest truck team, and they just have so many tools and resources. I feel like Chevy's engineers have been getting better. The simulator has been getting better. Everyone is on the same page and working well together. I feel like when I first went over there last year, Johnny was winning a lot, but the other three trucks were just okay, right? Then me and Brett got pretty close last year. Just every week, kind of hounded on them, especially Brett. We need to be better. He drove the 16 and he knew how good that was. We need to be better, we need to be better. It took all last year. I feel like our trucks had speed, but not what they do right now. Just the fab shop trying things, building really good chassis. The guys in the shop putting ideas together and executing. Yeah, just all starts in the shop for that. I can only go as fast as I can driving. The truck has to go fast also. Yeah, the trucks have been incredibly fast this year. Yeah, that's at least 50% of it. Q. When you look at this championship down the road, what are you going to remember most about 2020 and this championship tonight? SHELDON CREED: Honestly probably tell myself to enjoy it more. At this level, being young, a kid still, it's like we're in college right now, you're in class every day. Racing against my teammates for rides really. Incredibly talented, Brett, everyone. All the kids on other teams, you're racing them for the next chance, right? There's very few Cup rides open. Just racing for that opportunity. Just giving my best every week. Q. How much of a different driver are you this year than you were last year? Jeff said I don't want to say that you got a rude awakening, but coming off the ARCA title you thought trucks were going to be easier than they were last season. SHELDON CREED: Absolutely. Came from ARCA. I got away with a lot in ARCA I felt like. You can drive the car sideways, underneath people, the air is not as bad. I feel like that's where I struggled the most, was racing around people, just being hotheaded I guess middle of race, not making good decisions. I feel like I'm not a different race car driver. I feel like I still am really aggressive, do a lot of the same things. I'm just smarter. I think (indiscernible) told me, You can be fast whenever you want, but smart race car drivers win races. Just focus on that and how can I outsmart everyone around me, outrace people. Q. Looking at how much you've improved as a driver over the years, what piece of advice would you offer yourself five years ago on how you could progress in the future? SHELDON CREED: Five years ago I wasn't‑‑ I wasn't even racing asphalt full‑time five years ago. I would look back and tell myself to start racing late models, get in this stuff earlier. I feel like I was behind a lot of people learning. I was older than them. I'm older than Zane and Tyler, a lot of these kids. I was just behind them not racing late models, learning all this stuff. Yeah, just to watch film. I didn't really do any of that till last year. I just would show up to the racetrack, try to be fast. I didn't put any effort into it. That's hard to understand as a kid. You're 17, 18 years old, I was coming from off road where that was just really natural to me. Coming this way, it was a totally different world. Yeah, just try harder, absorb everything I could, watch more film. Q. What went into the decision to come down pit road? SHELDON CREED: Yeah, I mean, again, just I felt like Jeff and I felt like that was the only opportunity. We weren't going to beat those guys on old tires. Getting new tires was at least getting us a fighting chance at it. Q. You won the ARCA championship in convincing fashion. You won five races this year, but it came down to an overtime restart. How would you compare your two championships? SHELDON CREED: I mean, totally different. They're just totally different platforms on how ARCA is. Every race through the whole season, add points up. Now you race to get in the top 10, top 8, racing for Playoff points the first half of the year, then it becomes about consistency. If you can't win in the Playoffs, you want to finish good. As we've seen, it's taken people out recently like the 4 Cup car wins nine races, has a couple bad weeks. It's really important and it makes it a lot harder. We can't have bad weeks at the end of the season. Luckily we got those out I feel like midway or the beginning of the year. Way more nerve‑wracking. Way funner probably for the fans to watch. Man, it makes everyone feel the pressure, which that part I like. Q. You said post race you were going to drink a couple cold beers tonight. Have you started? What is your drink of choice? SHELDON CREED: No. Well, my team wasn't on top of this. They were not. I don't know where it's at. I don't have any. I had a cookie. That's what I get, a cookie so far. I'll drink some cold Coors Lights. Q. What type of cookie did you have? SHELDON CREED: It was like a chocolate chip, oatmeal or something. Q. How do you plan to celebrate? What advice do you have, if any, for the next guys to run this track tomorrow and Sunday? SHELDON CREED: I'll start with the first one. I plan to celebrate with we have 20 camp spots with friends, family, cousins, everyone. Just going to go party with them. Probably play some bags. I love corn hole. Going to do that. We're going to go with Lake Havasu with my guys. We have a vacation house there. Going to go there with all my guys tomorrow and going to show them some appreciation, hang out with them. For guys that are racing tomorrow, obviously the spray is ultra‑competitive once it comes in. Honestly I don't like it once it does come in so aggressively like that. It's really hard to pass once it does that, once the tires wear out. They'll figure it out. All of them are pretty good. Xfinity will race a little bit different because they're so low downforce. It will be fun to watch, yeah. Q. On the PJ1, how much of a factor was it throughout the middle of the race? SHELDON CREED: There at the beginning we weren't really touching it. I was pretty free behind the 21. Then I jumped up there. Usually it makes you tighter, most places. That's kind of why we were free, because I figured it would come in and that would make us really good. Then Brett was in it. He'd be in it, but out of it. I felt like maybe he was too tight. He would be free at times also. I don't know what his truck balance was. Yeah, you could play around with it. You could put two tires in it or all four. I was playing with it, too, because some laps it would change. It really freed you off of one and two probably the last half of the race. I don't know really where it came from. Just weird there. Yeah, I mean, every week it's different. There's different ways to use it to make your truck better. It just depends what your balance is. Q. You've been preaching a lot of teamwork. How important was it in those final laps? SHELDON CREED: My pit crew has been awesome all year. They're from RCR. They're really, really good. I'm excited to have them back for next year. Yeah, just a good call from Jeff to come in and get four tires, make the adjustments he did. There was really no teamwork as far as teammates go. It was everyone for themselves. Yeah, our team just executed really well at the end. THE MODERATOR: Sheldon, congratulations. That's all the questions we have for you. Probably not the end of your night though. SHELDON CREED: All right. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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