It’s pretty well known that once folks at Richard Childress Racing don’t like something their driver did, they make it clear, to the driver, and to everyone else as well. This was what happened to Sheldon Creed as well after his late Martinsville tussle with Austin Hill. Creed was blasted publicly by senior members of his team as well as his team’s owner. But could RCR take it a bit further than that? Could Creed be parked for the race in Phoenix?
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Denny Hamlin thinks it could be the case, but he also hopes that’s not the case.
During a recent episode of his podcast show, Actions Detrimental, Hamlin’s co-host Jared Allen brought up this question, whether RCR could disallow Creed from taking part in his final race for the organization.
“I think they would,” Hamlin replied as he revealed the situation his current driver Tyler Reddick faced in the last few months of his RCR tenure. “They were threatening to put Tyler in a really bad car. Basically, take him out of the #8 and put him in a terrible third car.”
As for the Creed parking situation, Hamlin added, “For the sake of themselves, I hope they don’t do it. I just think that would be, you’re adding on fuel to the fire. Let’s just save some face here and move on and understand it is what it is.”
Denny Hamlin can only speculate regarding favoritism in RCR
Speaking further on this subject, Hamlin claimed that he feels in Sheldon Creed’s mind, it was Austin Hill who is the “favorite child” of Richard Childress Racing in the Xfinity Series, that the team would only put effort towards Hill and not Creed. But then again, Hamlin claimed he doesn’t know for sure.
“That #2 car could be identical to the #21. We don’t know. We’re all speculating because we have a microphone in front of our face right now and need to talk about it,” he explained.
“Sheldon’s gonna leave and search for greener pastures and hopefully, both teams end up on their feet next year.”
RCR’s Andy Petree was not happy with Sheldon Creed after that finish. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/ev9FZ1s3aL
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) October 28, 2023
So it’ll be interesting to see now how RCR deals with this situation or if they deal with it at all heading into the final race of the season at Phoenix. Childress and Petree calling out Creed publically certainly wasn’t a good look for the organization for obvious reasons.
However, should they decide to park him in Phoenix, things could get worse on the look front.
