As reported by Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports this morning, both Xfinity Series regulars Sheldon Creen and Sam Mayer have signed on to drive in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for the rebranded Haas Factory team in 2025. Creed, who is still looking for his first win in the series, will move over and take on the number 00 car while Mayer will drive the renumbered 41 Ford for the team. The Haas Factory Team will not use the number 98 which is currently being piloted by Riley Herbst.
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We here at the Daily Downforce will keep you informed on this story as it develops.
The rebranded Haas Factory Team (currently operating as Stewart-Haas Racing) has gone through a lot of changes in the last year. With their franchise driver Kevin Harvick retiring at the end of the 2023 season, changes were bound to be made. Harvick infamously stated “They went from #4Ever to #4Ward to #4Sale in less than six months” when commenting on the announcement that SHR would effectively shut down.
Despite Championship driver and owner Tony Stewart pulling out of the fold, the team still intends to run a single car in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2024. Though it is not official, the favorite for the ride is their current Xfinity Series driver, former Cup Series winner, and defending Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer. With Custer potentially moving back up to the NASCAR Cup Series, that meant that his 00 Xfinity Series ride had to be filled.
Taking over the helm of the championship caliber 00 seat is Sheldon Creed. He has been linked to the team for some time. The shocking piece of this puzzle is that Sam Mayer will be joining him, taking over the current 98 seat which will be rebranded to the 41.
Stewart-Haas previously used the number 41 in the Xfinity Series when they first expanded to 2 teams back in 2017.
Sheldon Creed has been linked to Haas Factory Team for quite a while. Creed will be entering his fourth full-time season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2025 and Haas will be the third team he has driven for in four years. Creed started his career with Richard Childress racing in 2022 but left the team following 2023. His reason for leaving was a general lack of competitiveness and a result of butting heads with team management, namely Andy Petree. He is currently winless in the series but has finished runner-up 10 times.
He currently races the number 18 car for Joe Gibbs Racing. While his 2024 season hasn’t been bad by any means, it is largely viewed as underwhelming.
Like his future teammate, Sam Mayer has been a full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver since the 2022 season. All three of his full-time seasons in the series he has piloted the number 1 car for JR Motorsports. Following Connor Zilisch’s signing to drive the 88 car for the team in 2025, there was a lot of speculation as to what the team had planned with Sam Mayer going forward.
Mayer currently has 6 wins to his credit in the series and he hopes to continue his winning ways in 2025.
That does it for this dose of news out of the Michigan International Raceway pressroom. What do you make of this move? How do you think Creed’s and Mayer’s careers will shape up from here? Let us know what you think! And keep it right here at DailyDownforce.com for all the latest news and silly season rumors out of the NASCAR pressroom!
Brad Keselowski showed he can still wheel it at Daytona, establishing that even a broken femur, one of the worst hits an athlete can take, could not keep him on the sidelines. In fact, on the final lap, he was still in the hunt, attempting to go three-wide with Elliott before Riley Herbst’s move up the track wrecked both his plans and his car, leaving him with a P5 finish. Now, while he is ready for the Atlanta race on Sunday, his planned COTA run on March 1, 2026, hangs in the air, as he is still recovering from his injury, and a road course race requires more strength and leg work than oval races. Hence, Joey Hand is lined up as the relief driver for the No. 6 Ford.
Speaking in the Atlanta media scrum, Keselowski said he is glad to have Hand in the wings, noting he serves as Ford’s reserve for road courses. Hand has raced and won across the globe, even finishing P4 in the Chicago Street race back in 2024 for RFK Racing. That’s why Keselowski called him “a great guy,” adding that “he’s been very helpful.”
Still, with Hand being smaller in build, fitting him into the RFK Racing co-owner’s seat could pose a risk. When Fox Sports reporter Bob Pockrass floated the idea of Keselowski starting the race and then handing over mid-way, the 2012 Cup champ left the door open. “No, it is possible. So we kind of run through all that. and we’ve got a lot of good options with it,” he said, keeping all cards on the table.
The team has already been laying the groundwork, and Keselowski sounds like someone bracing for a game-time call on whether he can go the distance. He admitted, “I’m going to just see how I feel. I’ve got some more stuff, tests next week to get through with medical tests and physical tests, and I’ll probably just see how those go and make a decision on what’s best for the team,” after navigating the G-forces at Atlanta and eyeing more medical checkups.
That leaves the door ajar for a split-duty play, where Keselowski could start the race to bank points and then hand over the wheel to a stand-in, most likely Hand, if Keselowski’s leg refuses to cooperate.
During the off-season, Keselowski broke his right femur in an accident while he was on a trip with his family, out skiing, in December 2025. He was cleared for the Daytona 500, but road courses like COTA demand more from the body. Even during Daytona Speedweeks, he hinted that while he could handle straight-line racing, a full road-course grind might be a different beast. Ahead of the season opener, the RFK Racing owner was seen moving through the garage with a cane, indicating that the road back still has miles left.
After Daytona’s chaotic run at the superspeedway, packed with fuel-saving, pileups, and a last-lap crash before Tyler Reddick drove it home to hand 23XI Racing, Denny Hamlin, and Michael Jordan their first Daytona 500 win, the 38-driver pack is now ready to go to the next mini superspeedway stop, EchoPark Speedway. But rain and lightning have already pulled the plug on Cup Series qualifying on Saturday morning, so the metric will set the grid. Here’s where the field will roll off for the Autotrader 400.
The formula previously relied on four criteria: the car’s rank in owner standings (35%), the driver’s finish in the last race (25%), the car’s finish in the last race (25%), and the driver’s fastest-lap rank (15%). For full-time pairings, the two 25% chunks often merged into one 50% slice. But for 2026, NASCAR trimmed the math. Now it will all come down to the car’s place in owner standings (30%) and the entry’s finish in the last race (70%).
By that yardstick, Reddick seizes pole for Sunday and the first pit box of the season’s second round. If 23XI keeps him in the hunt through the draft at Atlanta, he could go back-to-back and start the year two for two.
Team Penske will get another chance at a superspeedway-style track. Joey Logano, who finished the Daytona race last weekend in P3 and won his Duel, will line up alongside Reddick on the front row. The former Atlanta resident will return to the ground he knows well, and if the calendar keeps its rhythm, his even-year run could start early.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., runner-up in the 500, will start from the third.
On his outside will sit hometown hope Chase Elliott, who came within a turn of stealing Daytona before Herbst tagged the rear of the No. 9 and sent it into the wall, leaving him fourth. But given that he still showed he can slice through traffic on a drafting track and be there when it counts, it might pay off very well at Atlanta. He left Florida without the trophy but with points in hand, two wins on the track, and an average finish of 11.4. He might just be the fan-favorite in Atlanta.
Rounding out the top five is Brad Keselowski, who opened the points season in P5. It is not a bad way to kick off the year, and the former EchoPark winner and last summer’s runner-up understands how to stay in the fight here.
Zane Smith, Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, Bubba Wallace, and Josh Berry fill out the top ten on the grid.
Casey Mears in the No. 66 Garage 66 Ford will sit this one out after the team pulled the entry due to damage from Daytona Speedweeks.
Meanwhile, open teams JJ Yeley in the No. 44 for NY Racing and BJ McLeod in the No. 78 for Live Fast Motorsports raced their way in. However, the Austin Dillon and BJ McLeod entries failed inspection twice, leading to the ejection of their car chiefs and the loss of pit stall selection.
Joey Logano could break Richard Petty’s 47-year-old record for the most consecutive drafting-track races led this weekend at EchoPark Speedway. After leading laps in the Daytona 500, Logano has now led in 19 straight drafting-track races, dating back to 2023, tying a mark The King set from 1974 to 1979.
Logano now has a clear opportunity to move past Petty and claim sole possession of one of NASCAR’s longest-standing superspeedway records, and considering his and Team Penske’s history of dominance in this style of tracks, it seems that he is poised to break it.
