Jesse Love has a knack for winning poles like he did for Saturday’s RAPTOR King of Tough 250 at Atlanta. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
HAMPTON, Ga. — Jesse Love has made the most of NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying with his No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet Camaro team. For the second consecutive race weekend, the 19-year-old Menlo Park, California native won the pole, this time for Saturday’s RAPTOR King of Tough 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The reigning ARCA Menards Series champion took to the 1.54-mile quad-oval with a time of 31.874 seconds or 173.935 mph. By far, the rookie racer has taken to the superspeedway style races efficiently, particularly in qualifying.
After starting from the pole for Monday night’s United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway, Love, who led 34 laps before getting collected in a 11-car accident on Lap 38, finished 20th with a damaged left front fender.
On Friday afternoon, Love capitalized with another fast No. 2 Camaro. This time, he hopes to apply some of the lessons learned from Daytona to have a solid Saturday night at the tricky intermediate track that behaves like a superspeedway.
“I think I learned a little bit of a lesson at Daytona with how fast our car is,” Love said. “I can probably take my time a little bit more than other guys and still get to the front pretty quickly. So, I’m going to implement that (Saturday night) and hopefully win the first stage and get some more Playoff points and points in general.
“But after that, I’m just gonna take my time and methodically get to the front. I feel like last week, I was just a rabid dog trying to get to the front. Our cars are really good at leading and that’s probably why. But they handled well too. Yea, it’s awesome and we’ve got another good shot (Saturday night).”
In the meantime, Love praised his No. 2 team led by veteran crew chief Danny Stockman. With Stockman’s wealth of knowledge and experience leading a team to a championship, Love recognizes that it is not just an individual effort with contending at superspeedway style races.
Jesse Love knows how to drop the hammer in qualifying after winning the pole for the RAPTOR King of Tough 250 at Atlanta. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
“It’s really cool. These speedways, there’s a little bit that a driver can do. But the biggest thing is it just speaks volumes with how good our team is,” he said. “Everyone knows how good Danny Stockman is. Our road crew is just phenomenal.
“It’s just a pleasure to drive these racecars. To get Whelen Engineering in the spotlight really early is awesome. My goal is to hopefully get locked in the Playoffs in the first five or 10 races. We’ve got another good shot (Saturday night).”
Ranked 11th in the the championship standings with 26 points, Love gave an honest assessment of his NASCAR XFINITY Series debut.
“I thought it was a productive debut,” Love said in a team press release. “It was nice to get our first pole, win a stage, and lead the most laps. The stage point that we earned could go a long way in a few months, so I’m glad to have a playoff point secured already. It was pretty cool to edge my teammate, Austin Hill, at the line to win the stage. At the same time, I do think he cut me a little bit of a break to let me have a moment of glory.”
That moment of glory was quickly extinguished by the backstretch “Big One” that hampered his efforts to contend for the win at Daytona, a lesson he paid dearly for with a fast car.
“After we lost our track position at the end of Stage 1 – which was part of our overall plan – I wanted to be aggressive and get back to the front as fast as I could,” he recalled. “I thought I made smart decisions that were aggressive but calculated from a timing perspective. I just got a bad push from the No. 20 and that spun us around.
“Looking back on it, I’m not sure if I should have put myself in that spot, but there were a lot of good cars in the line that I was in, and we were rolling on the bottom. Traditionally on superspeedway races, you are safest out front so I wouldn’t take any of it back. In the future knowing how fast of a car I had though, I could have been more patient.”
Patience is the name of the game at any track. Similarly, Atlanta is a superspeedway where precision and aggression must coincide with each other, which Love understands particularly with racing for a storied team like Richard Childress Racing.
Perhaps a second pole for Jesse Love means a trip to Atlanta’s Victory Lane for the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet Camaro. (Photo: Ricky Martinez | The Podium Finish)
For a young driver who has those infamous rookie stripes, he has a mature outlook for his second race. Now, he hopes to showcase his words can be back up by his actions on the track, perhaps with a trip to Victory Lane to sweeten things up in the Peachtree State.
“For Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend and when we go back to superspeedways later this season, the key is going to be putting myself in safe positions,” Love said. “With how fast my Whelen Chevrolet was in Daytona, I could have been safer than other people and still had the same result. The goal for this weekend is to do the same thing as Daytona though, except not get wrecked and have a better outcome. I need to be aggressive.
“Hopefully, we will be able to sit on the pole again and keep that first pit stall. From there, we will try to stay out front. At some point we will lose track position and when that does happen, I need to take my time a little more than Daytona. The racing at Atlanta is a little less tight than Daytona, so I can be safer with my moves, still go forward, and be in position to have a shot at the win at the end. In the back of my mind, I can be more passive than others and still get to the front with how fast our No. 2 car is.”
