Richard Childress Racing and Sheldon Creed both announced on Wednesday that they won’t be together for the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
My take on this is that it was a puzzling time to announce. RCR just advanced both cars to the Round of 8 with Creed being one of them. I question on the timing of this announcement in the fact that it could have waited a few more weeks.
Why ruin a potential good run out of Creed to possibly advance to the Championship 4. I’m not saying that this is going to be a distraction between he or this No. 2 Chevrolet team but I’m also saying that it’s not either. Who knows who this team will react.
Was there drama brewing still between Creed and teammate Austin Hill?
I also think this has something to do with Spire announcing on Tuesday that they will have Carson Hocevar in the No. 77 Chevrolet on the Cup side and Ty Dillon won’t be returning. With RCR announcing this a day later, could Ty be coming back to RCR on a full-time basis and if so, Creed could be the one pushed aside.
They already signed Hill to a multi-year contract extension and don’t have the resources to be a three-car outfit in the series. So, maybe they needed room for Dillon.
For Creed, there’s plenty of rides available to move into. One of which could be with Kaulig but I don’t necessarily see that happening in the fact that Kaulig is aligned with RCR. Another possibility is Joe Gibbs Racing.
They have a full compliment of cars available for the taking. Could Creed land there?
The 26-year-old won the 2020 Truck Series title for GMS and was 5th in points a year later. He was 14th in points as an Xfinity Series rookie for RCR in 2022 but has been far more consistent this season than last. While he’s winless in 66 career NXS starts, he does have 5 runner-up finishes including 3 of which this season alone.
Creed has 8 straight top 11 finishes on the season.
Race Review Online 