CREED FOLLOWS IN SOME BIG FOOTSTEPS
Alpine driver hopes to make Cup series after Trucks title
Seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson is not the most recent San Diego County native to win a NASCAR championship.
Two weeks ago, Sheldon Creed, a third-generation racer who was raised in Alpine, charged from ninth to first over the final two, one-mile laps at Phoenix International Raceway to win the 150-mile season finale and NASCAR’s Gander RV & Outdoors Trucks championship for 2020.
And while the third-echelon Trucks series is two steps below where Johnson has triumphed, there is no denying there are noticeable parallels two decades apart in the racing careers of the 45-year-old Johnson and the 23-year-old Creed.
• Both started their motorsports careers on dirt bikes on the Barona Oaks track between Lakeside and Ramona.
• Both became champions as teenagers in off-road stadium truck series against much older and accomplished drivers.
• Both transformed to asphalt and stock cars through the ARCA Series and made their way to NASCAR in their early 20s.
“I’ve met Jimmie many times,” Creed said recently in a phone interview. “We’ve talked about the same ways we both got started. There are parallels. It is interesting. But mostly we talk about racing.”
But Creed didn’t start racing with Johnson as a role model.
He was racing his first BMX bicycle at the age of three in 2000 and was a state champion as a 5-year-old. He was on his first mini-motorcycle as a 6-year-old and won his first Barona Motocross title as an 8-yearold in 2005.
Johnson won his f irst NASCAR title a year later.
“As a kid from east San Diego County, as I was growing up I loved that Jimmie Johnson became a champion after starting at Barona Oaks like I did,” said Creed. “We all did. All of us getting started as kids back then dreamed about being him.”
By the time he was 8, Creed was racing quartermidgets.
Then he was a champion in off-road karts before joining the professional Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series at the age of 15 in 2012 and then the newly launched Stadium Truck Series a year later.
In March 2013, Creed led SST qualifiers in his debut at Qualcomm Stadium then chased former IndyCar driver and off-roading leg
end Robby Gordon to a runner-up finish — just as Johnson had chased another offroading legend (Alpine’s Ivan Stewart) over the same track nearly 25 years earlier.
Creed’s career quickly took off. He won two SST season championships. At the age of 18, he became the youngest driver ever to compete in a four-wheel vehicle at the Dakar rally. He won races in Australia, Mexico, Canada and South America in addition to the United States.
He started racing stock cars in 2014, won the 2018 NASCAR-backed ARCA national title in 2018 and had cameo appearances on the Trans-Am and NASCAR’s second-echelon Xfinity Series. In 2019, Creed joined the GMS Gander Series truck team.
Creed led the Truck points through the regular season in 2020 with three wins. He then won at Texas during the playoffs to advance to the winner-take-all championship race at Phoenix — where he was ninth with two laps to go after pitting to take on two new tires.
“I had to win to win the race to win the season title,” said Creed.
“I always try to be optimistic, but I didn’t know how it was going to work out until off turn two after the restart. It opened up for me and I went from ninth to third by the time we came out of the first turn. I was leading when we took the white f lag.”
Creed will return to the Truck series in 2021, but hopes to jump to NASCAR’s premier series in 2022.
“I think there are going to be opportunities available in 2022,” said Creed. “There will be a new car going into that season and it will be easier to get a ride. The cost of racing will be coming down, new teams will be coming in and some of the senior drivers on the top tour now will be retiring.
“The trucks are fun, but the cars are more interesting to race. They race a little better and you can stay a little closer to the competition around you. The trucks are more difficult to race around people making it more difficult to pass.”
Creed will return to Southern California this winter to spend time with his family in Alpine and compete on the dirt in California Lightning Sprint Car races in Bakersfield and Merced.
“I’m just going to keep racing and have some fun,” Creed said.