There was some drama involving Sheldon Creed leaving Richard Childress Racing’s Xfinity program, and Denny Hamlin had some feelings on the matter.
Many believed Creed had unlimited potential in RCR’s No. 2 machine, but that hasn’t been realized, and now he’ll be moving on. During the latest episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin tried to make sense as to why that was.
“I don’t have a whole lot on this either. Usually I’ve got some backstory to it. … Sheldon made it really clear in his message that he’s decided to leave RCR. I mean, that was like the first sentence. He says, ‘I’m leaving RCR.’ Obviously it sounds like — listen, it wasn’t a [Tyler] Reddick situation, where they were like, ‘Timing could not be worse.’ I don’t know. Their PR department over there, something is interesting for sure, in their responses to these things. But yeah, he’s leaving. I don’t know where he’s going, but you’ve got think he’s got something on his mind,” Hamlin delineated. “I mean, the results have been lackluster, in my opinion. When I saw Sheldon Creed run trucks for many years, I thought, ‘Man, he’s really, really good, and I think he’s going to excel when he goes to RCR in the Xfinity Series.’ He just hasn’t. He hasn’t run like I expected him to run. I mean, he’s battling around the same spot every week, and that’s at the back-half of the top ten. Maybe even in the teens. They’re not clicking, for sure. You can see why, and I don’t know, why is that.
“Is it Sheldon, is it RCR equipment? I don’t know, I just know that the results are not what I expected, and clearly they’re not what Sheldon expected. Now you’re going to find out wherever he goes next, like is this a Sheldon thing, or is this an RCR, or No. 2 car thing? So I don’t know. But Austin Hill, he’s got success. A lot of his success has come on the super-speedways, but you know, he’s a contender, I guess you could say. Certainly more of a contender on the other race tracks. So that one is a head scratcher, for sure. Don’t know what Sheldon’s doing, but I assume he wouldn’t leave unless he had an alternative plan.”
Evidently, we’ll find out next season whether Sheldon Creed or RCR was the main problem, but Denny Hamlin and NASCAR fans around the world will be waiting to see who has better results in 2024.
More must-reads: