Sheldon Creed is debuting a new partnership this weekend in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series race at Pocono Raceway and it’s more than just a logo placed on his Haas Factory Team No. 00 but is also a device that he will place on his head.
Vielight is a small, light-emitting device placed on the cranium like a strap. It emits flashing red lights and has a component placed in the nostril.
“This is some incredible technology; been able to use it at home starting last week and am just really focused on my brain health,” Creed told Motorsport.com on Tuesday. “Obviously a lot of us race car drivers, we all have gyms or different workout programs, but I felt like something really important was brain health and how to stay focused in the car and how can I can recover quicker afterwards.”
To better explain how Vielight works, its vice president of sales and marketing, Peter Adams was made available to talk about the technology. He says the headset focuses on near infrared light therapy to support mitochondrial activity, cerebral blood flow, and overall neurological function through the rain and nose.
“It’s a very specific frequency of light, near infrared,” Adams said. “And the trick is, if you use infrared on your head, it penetrates deeply but it burns the surface. If you use a higher wavelength, like blue for example, or plain visible red, that won’t actually penetrate the skull enough.
“So it’s that sweet spot in between and we use custom-built LED diodes to supply that as much energy as is needed to actually penetrate the brain but not fry it and create that effect. And research has shown that specific frequency has the most powerful effect on the mitochondria.
“The device is battery powered, it’s low power. The FDA classifies it as a general wellness device because of the power and it is positioned very specifically over a brain network called the default mode network. That’s where the diodes are placed. And there’s one other extra diode now at the back, which is on the cerebellum, which influences motor control.”
So how is this beneficial for athletes?
“Why Vielight is being used more-and-more in sports is that it actually operates at a really fundamental level within the brain at a level called the mitochondria,” Adams said. “And these are the organisms, they’re organized to live within the cells, and absorb a specific frequency of light and translate that into cell building and cell repairing energy.
“So the whole personality of a cell, what a cell is going to do, the energy it transfers is all propelled and controlled by the mitochondria.”
Recently, the University of Utah did a placebo controlled trial with the Brigham Young University football team over a 16-week period that showed those using the device displayed increased reaction time, speed, grip and strength attributes.
These studies are still it its early days but the partnership with Creed is also another opportunity to test its effects on a NASCAR driver.
“I just got mine and started using it last week, so it will be my first weekend seeing what I feel, results wise,” Creed said. “I want to see if it reduces brain fog or increases my focus for an entire race. I’m looking forward to using it post-race and seeing what it does for recovery too.”
Sheldon Creed, Haas Factory Team Ford
Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images
Looking for a rebound
Creed looked like a bonafides threat to challenge Justin Allgaier and Jesse Love for a championship until a month ago when a series of incidents and misfortune dropped him from second in the standings to fourth.
But still, Creed finally broke a string of 15 runner-ups without a NOAPS victory at Atlanta in February. He followed that up with 10 top-10s and six top-5s across the first 12 races. Since then, his best finish over the last four races is a 15th at Nashville.
“I feel like we fired off the season extremely consistent, had great speed, which it’s always fun when you’re driving ’em and they’re really fast and just racing towards the front, it just makes your day a lot more enjoyable,” Creed said. “But yeah, I don’t know. The month of May was tough on us for whatever reason.
“We lacked a little speed, I would say, at three of the four and then obviously got caught up in crashes at Charlotte and Watkins Glen. We just missed it at Nashville. We weren’t really good balance wise on both ends.
“I was loose and tight all day and it was just hard to go. I feel like every team has their couple of weeks slump where they’re trying things or when the weather changes. So we’re just looking forward to going to Pocono to see if we’re made gains or if we need to get back to work.”
Creed has fallen to 59 points behind Jesse Love for second and 42 points behind Corey Day for third. Each of these spots in the standings matter because the regular season standings determine the seeding for the Chase for the Championship.
First
Second -25
Third -35
Fourth -40
Fifth -45
Sixth -50
So it’s really important for Creed to stay within a race’s worth of points to Allgaier, but also try to retake second or third in advance of the final nine races.
“Obviously, Justin and their group’s been making it hard on everyone, even on days where they aren’t winning, they are scoring a massive number of stage points,” Creed said. “They’ve been really good. So yeah, I was really frustrated after Charlotte when all of us ran through the oil, and then didn’t go back green, and that was just a messy race.
“Look at where we were two weeks ago, second in points, and now fourth. We need to get back to second and we can’t drop any lower than fourth because you need to be as close to Justin as possible when the points reset.
“Hopefully, we can make it a close battle with them, (Corey Day) and (Jesse Love) because we’re all very competitive right now.”
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