Sheldon Creed breaks Toyota stranglehold, wins chaotic LiftKits4Less 200

The 2021 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season has been dominated by Toyota as a Tundra won every race entering Friday’s LiftKits4Less.com 200 at Darlington Raceway. However, a chaotic final stage knocked out much of the field, and an overtime finish saw the Chevrolet of Sheldon Creed hold off Toyota adversary Ben Rhodes to score his first victory of the year.

A Toyota front row of John Hunter Nemechek and Austin Hill started on the front row and led until the lap 16 competition caution. Codie Rohrbaugh and Kris Wright‘s wreck on lap 27 and Stewart Friesen‘s on lap 34 produced the opening stage’s two race-related yellows. Ford driver Todd Gilliland was the first non-Toyota to lead laps under green, and went on to score the stage victory ahead of Nemechek, Zane Smith, Hill, Creed, Matt Crafton, series newcomer Corey Heim, Grant Enfinger, and Tyler Ankrum.

Nemechek retook the lead to begin Stage #2 and held it until Chase Purdy and Akinori Ogata were squeezed into the wall for the caution on lap 82. While Ogata was able to return to the race, Purdy joined Norm Benning—who was parked on lap 61 for being too slow for the third time in 2021—as the stage’s retirements. The latter set up a three-lap dash to the green-checkered flag, which Nemechek and his newer tyres won ahead of Heim, Carson Hocevar, Chandler Smith, Friesen, Timmy Hill, Gilliland, Creed, Austin Hill, and Timothy Peters.

Although Peters scored his first stage points since the season opener, he spun and hit the turn four wall on lap 103 for the first caution of Stage #3. The next two wrecks increased in magnitude as Tanner Gray was turned by Ryan Truex and slid down the frontstretch, where he was impacted by a sideways Ogata and Timmy Hill.

The ensuing restart marked one of the largest Truck wrecks on a non-superspeedway when Kyle Busch Motorsports team-mates Heim and Nemechek collided as they led the field to green and stacked up everyone behind them. Seventeen drivers were either collected or suffered some type of damage in the carnage: Heim, Nemechek, Crafton, Enfinger, Hill, Peters, both Smiths, Ankrum, Danny Bohn, Dawson Cram, Bayley Currey, Spencer Davis, Hailie Deegan, Tate Fogleman, David Gilliland, and B.J. McLeod. The race was red flagged as a result, followed by twelve laps under caution for cleanup. Chandler Smith was eventually parked after scattering brake rotor pieces on the track, while Rhodes and Creed were able to dodge the chaos.

The next green flag came on lap 131, only for yet another wreck when Parker Kligerman‘s tyre went down and he slammed into Friesen. Bohn’s spin on lap 142 resulted in overtime.

A strong restart by Creed enabled him to take the lead from Rhodes, who began fighting with Hocevar for second. Shortly after Creed took the white flag, Deegan spun to end the race under yellow and Creed secured his sixth career victory. It is a strong bounce back at Darlington for Creed after dominating the 2020 race only to finish eighteenth after pitting before overtime.

Creed’s win ends Toyota’s monopoly over Victory Lane at seven races. It also locks him into the playoffs and grants him an opportunity to defend his 2020 championship. He also enjoys what is technically his third truck race victory of 2021; in April, he swept the Stadium Super Trucks weekend at St. Petersburg. In the spirit of Throwback Weekend, Creed’s #2 GMS Racing truck featured a tribute livery to the late Jason Leffler‘s #2 Ultra Motorsports vehicle in 2002; poetically, Ultra’s truck was driven by Kasey Kahne at Darlington in 2004 to his first series win, a race that also ended under caution.

As the race was the first leg of the Triple Truck Challenge, the triumph also gave Creed a $50,000 bonus that he can increase to $500,000 should he win the next two Challenge rounds at Circuit of the Americas and Charlotte Motor Speedway. He finished fifth at the latter in 2020. Although COTA is a new addition to the NASCAR schedule, Creed won the X Games Austin 2015 SST gold medal there on a mixed-surface course (which NASCAR will obviously not be using).

Rhodes finished second in a flip of the top two at the Daytona Road Course in February. Amusingly, that race was also plagued by numerous incidents that resulted in a long run time; Darlington ran for 2 hours, 28 minutes, and 40 seconds to mark the third-longest race in series history, while the Daytona RC holds the top spot by over sixteen minutes. Hocevar’s third is his best career finish, while Timmy Hill rebounded from his wreck to finish seventh. Jordan Anderson ended his day in tenth for his maiden top ten outside of a superspeedway and at his home track. Ryan Reed finished twelfth in his first start as one of Creed’s team-mates at GMS Racing, while Erik Darnell was seventeenth in his first Truck race since 2008 and return to NASCAR after an eight-year absence.

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	15	2	Sheldon Creed	GMS Racing	Chevrolet	147	Running
2	4	99	Ben Rhodes	ThorSport Racing	Toyota	147	Running
3	14	42	Carson Hocevar	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet	147	Running
4	9	88	Matt Crafton	ThorSport Racing	Toyota	147	Running
5	17	98	Grant Enfinger	ThorSport Racing	Toyota	147	Running
6	6	13	Johnny Sauter	ThorSport Racing	Toyota	147	Running
7	26	56	Timmy Hill	Hill Motorsports	Chevrolet	147	Running
8	1	4	John Hunter Nemechek	Kyle Busch Motorsports	Toyota	147	Running
9	12	22	Austin Wayne Self	AM Racing	Chevrolet	147	Running
10	31	3	Jordan Anderson	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	147	Running
11	18	40	Ryan Truex	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet	147	Running
12	19	24	Ryan Reed	GMS Racing	Chevrolet	147	Running
13	2	16	Austin Hill	Hattori Racing Enterprises	Toyota	147	Running
14	16	26	Tyler Ankrum	GMS Racing	Chevrolet	147	Running
15	5	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	147	Running
16	3	21	Zane Smith	GMS Racing	Chevrolet	147	Running
17	22	45	Erik Darnell	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet	147	Running
18	27	30	Danny Bohn	On Point Motorsports	Toyota	147	Running
19	21	25	Timothy Peters	Rackley WAR	Chevrolet	147	Running
20	10	1	Hailie Deegan	David Gilliland Racing	Ford	147	Running
21	38	44	Bayley Currey	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet	146	Running
22	34	20	Spencer Boyd	Young’s Motorsports	Chevrolet	144	Running
23	13	51	Corey Heim	Kyle Busch Motorsports	Toyota	142	DVP
24	37	10	Jennifer Jo Cobb	Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing	Chevrolet	139	Overheating
25	7	52	Stewart Friesen	Halmar Friesen Racing	Toyota	131	DVP
26	36	75	Parker Kligerman	Henderson Motorsports	Chevrolet	130	Accident
27	8	18	Chandler Smith	Kyle Busch Motorsports	Toyota	126	Parked
28	35	17	David Gilliland	David Gilliland Racing	Ford	117	Accident
29	28	11	Spencer Davis	Spencer Davis Motorsports	Toyota	117	Accident
30	33	12	Tate Fogleman	Young’s Motorsports	Chevrolet	117	Accident
31	32	41	Dawson Cram	Cram Racing Enterprises	Chevrolet	117	Accident
32	39	33	B.J. McLeod	Reaume Brothers Racing	Chevrolet	117	Accident
33	11	15	Tanner Gray	David Gilliland Racing	Ford	110	Accident
34	23	34	Akinori Ogata	Reaume Brothers Racing	Toyota	110	Accident
35	20	19	Derek Kraus	McAnally-Hilgemann Racing	Toyota	109	Running
36	24	23	Chase Purdy	GMS Racing	Chevrolet	80	Accident
37	40	6	Norm Benning	Norm Benning Racing	Chevrolet	61	Too Slow
38	25	9	Codie Rohrbaugh	CR7 Motorsports	Chevrolet	26	Accident
39	30	02	Kris Wright	Young’s Motorsports	Chevrolet	25	Accident
40	29	04	Cory Roper	Roper Racing	Ford	13	Accident