Jesse Love battling with Sheldon Creed at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Landon Ciardullo | The Podium Finish)
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Jesse Love has had an interesting start to his rookie campaign in 2024, showing speed, but not having any results to show for it. Despite winning two poles in the first three races of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season, Love entered the Call 811.com Every Dig. Every Time. 200 at Phoenix Raceway still in search of his first career top-10 finish.
Love carried over some of that speed to Phoenix, qualifying seventh in his No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet Camaro, and out-qualifying his Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Hill by eight positions.
Once the race went green, Love who started in the bottom lane went on the offensive attack, diving down below the white line making it four wide on Lap 1 to break into the top five. The aggression ended up hurting Love though, as he quickly was in the middle of three-wide and lost positions to both Aric Almirola and Justin Allgaier. This created an opening on the bottom for John Hunter Nemechek to try and get around Love, and led to contact between the two drivers at the start-finish line to start Lap 2.
After the contact with Nemechek, Love went under attack from AJ Allmendinger, originally fighting him off before eventually being passed. Love was able to settle down in the eighth position before a caution came out on Lap 6 for a spinning Josh Williams and Dawson Cram. The race went back green on Lap 12 and Love was able to settle inside the top 10 for the remainder of Stage 1, finishing in 10th and earning one stage point to go along with it.
Stage 2 went green on Lap 55 and stayed green for the remainder of the stage. Love was able to stay inside of the top 10 and begin clawing his way back to the front, finishing Stage 2 in the eighth position.
All of the leaders came down pit road on Lap 94 following the end of Stage 2 and restarted on Lap 101, beginning the final stage.
Love restarted eighth and began battling very hard once again, even going up the track and making slight contact with Sam Mayer while battling for seventh, only four laps after the restart. All was good up until Lap 138 when Hailie Deegan got loose and made contact with the wall, bringing out a caution. This brought the leaders down pit road with Nemechek winning the race off pit road.
The race went back green with just 57 laps to go, with Love restarting in seventh. Heading to the back straightaway, Allgaier was able to clear Nemechek and take the lead, allowing Chandler Smith to get inside of Nemechek. However, that is when the chaos began, as Riley Herbst and Smith made contact, causing Smith to get into Nemechek, sending the No. 20 car across the track in front of the field leading to a huge pileup that collected 13 cars in total. Love was able to sneak through in the top lane. The race was red-flagged soon after, leading to an 11-minute, 4-second delay.
Following the red flag, the race restarted on Lap 152 with Love inside of the top five for the first time all race. Allgaier was able to run away with the lead as the rest of the pack battled it out. With five laps to go Love had worked his way up to fourth when a caution came out for Allgaier, who blew a left-rear tire while leading, backing into the wall hard, ending not only his chances to win but his race entirely. This forced the race into NASCAR overtime.
Love restarted in the second row on the outside lane next to defending NASCAR Xfinity Series Champion Cole Custer and behind the No. 18 car of Sheldon Creed. The outside line did not get a good jump, as Love lost a few positions initially, but was able to get them back quickly. Love was able to get around both Custer and Austin Hill to slide into the third position as the white flag waved. Love got around Creed on the final lap, finishing in second as Chandler Smith claimed the win.
The result for Love was not only his first career top 10 finish, but top five finish as well in just Love’s fourth career start.
“It stings to finish second and be that close to winning,” Love shared after the race. “I hate running second as much as anybody, but at the same time, I’m proud of my Richard Childress Racing team. They gave me a fantastic Whelen Chevrolet today at Phoenix Raceway.”
It was a day of resilience for Love and his No. 2 team, as adjustments throughout the race allowed Love to find himself in a position to win. “We weren’t phenomenal to start the day. We needed to work on it.” Love said, “Danny Stockman made some good adjustments to the Whelen Camaro and my pit crew did a great job all day. I needed a little bit more at the end.”
Love will look to carry the momentum of a top-five finish after the off week for the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Circuit of the Americas on March 23, for the Focused Health 250.
