Sam Mayer, Sheldon Creed escape Charlotte with Round of 8 berths

Sheldon Creed could only watch as Daniel Hemric threw his car to the inside of Parker Kligerman and Kaz Grala as they came to the finish, but he let out the biggest sigh of relief when it turned out Hemric was unable to pass either of them.

Creed and Hemric were separated by just two points as Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval came to an end, with whoever having the edge getting to advance to the Round of 8 of the playoffs. While Creed was running tenth, Hemric was seventh and needed to pass just more cars as a tie between the two would be broken in Hemric’s favour as he had the best finish of the round. Kligerman was also below the cut line but would have needed every leader in front of him to retire, leaving him in a scramble for pride with Hemric and Grala.

Grala barely beat Kligerman for fifth, who in turn edged out Hemric by a hood’s length. Creed settled for tenth to take the eighth and final spot in the next round.

“I wasn’t nervous at the end, but it definitely wasn’t fun or comfortable,” said Creed. “Luckily, I had the #10 (Hemric) and #48 (Kligerman) only two cars ahead of me on track, so I could watch and judge off their moves to see if I needed to throw a Hail Mary on the final lap. Our #2 team sort of stumbled our way through the first round of the playoffs to advance to the Round of 8 though, so we are fortunate that we had the luck that we did. We still have work to do to bring faster race cars to the track. It was a battle out there, especially for a road course.”

Creed was not the only driver needing a near-miracle to qualify for the next round. Sam Mayer was even further back at thirty-four points below the cut line entering Charlotte, but put himself in prime position early by winning the pole and leading all but seventeen laps.

Cole Custer, who locked himself into the Round of 8 on points, challenged Mayer for the win in the closing ten laps. They comprised the front row for the last restart with five laps remaining, and Mayer overtook him on the inside a lap later. Custer was unable to catch up. The win is Mayer’s third of 2023, all of which have come on road courses after Road America and Watkins Glen.

The final green flag occurred after Justin Allgaier and Jeb Burton, the latter at the bottom of the Round of 12 prior to Charlotte, wrecked going into turn one. Allgaier was already safe thanks to his playoff-opening win at Bristol.

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