Lessons Learned For Truck Series Champion
By Bob Pockrass
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Sheldon Creed won a national stock-car series title in 2018 and thought he could consistently compete for series championships as he rose through the development driver ladder.
But after his ARCA title in 2018, he got a little bit of a rude awakening in 2019 as a NASCAR Camping World Series rookie in a year where he made the playoffs but went winless for the season, finishing the worst in the standings among the 10 playoff drivers.
So he went to work. With better trucks from his GMS Racing team this year and focusing more on his fitness and racing craft, the 23-year-old racer captured the 2020 Gander RV Truck Series title Friday at Phoenix Raceway.
"I got away with a lot in ARCA," Creed said. "You can drive the car sideways more underneath people and the air is not as bad.
"That’s where I struggled the most, racing around people, just being hot-headed middle of the race not making good decisions. ... I just focused [this year] on how I can outsmart everyone around me and outrace people."
Creed won five times in 2020, including twice in the playoffs. A stellar restarter, his team opted to pit prior to an overtime finish Friday in the championship race at Phoenix Raceway, and he went from sixth – the driver with the most fresh tires – to first in a lap and sped to the victory.
But Creed didn’t win the title in the final two laps; he won the championship because he didn’t do anything to beat himself, and because he kept his composure despite knowing he didn’t have the best truck among the four finalists.
"It’s a complete opposite Sheldon Creed from when I first started working with him," said his crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz. "He’s always had the speed, but it was just taming the speed and him understanding what he has to do to finish these things."
Part of Creed’s improvement in 2020 could be credited to Josh Wise, a performance coach who works with Chevrolet’s young drivers at GMS Racing and JR Motorsports, guiding the drivers on fitness, race craft and mental preparation.
Creed and Wise have weekly video review sesssions. He focuses on the details of restarts, getting on and off pit road and moves done by Cup drivers that he could use to be successful.
"He was overly confident [in 2019] and he quite didn’t understand that the truck series is a whole different ballgame than the ARCA Series when it comes to the competition and the drivers," Stankiweicz said.
"It took him a while to realize that even though he is really good on restarts, nobody is going to give him anything."
Creed, whose roots are in off-road and racing trucks on courses that included jumps, will return to GMS Racing in 2021. He will look to repeat as a truck champion – and with eyes on bigger things in the years to come. He can see the dedication to improve has brought results.
"I am older than ... a lot of these kids – I was behind not racing late models and learning all this stuff," Creed said. "To watch film, I didn’t really do any of that until last year.
"I just would show up to the race track and try to be fast. I didn’t put any effort into it."
