HAMPTON, Ga. — After his pole-winning car ended up in a last-lap crash at Daytona International Speedway on Monday (Feb. 19), Jesse Love came back to play in Saturday’s (Feb. 24) RAPTOR King of Tough 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Love started the afternoon at Atlanta with another pole over Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Hill, and he became the first driver in NASCAR Xfinity Series history to win two poles in his first two starts in the process.
That same dominance showed during the race, as Love swept the first two stages and led 81 of the first 83 laps. The start of the final stage brought about a brief side-by-side battle for the lead with AJ Allmendinger, but it was Love who ultimately prevailed. And once Love jumped in front of Allmendinger on the outside, the inside line that Love was leading instantly suffocated.
It was a single file affair throughout the race, and as the laps ticked down, it looked like nothing would be able to stop the No. 2 car.
Except fuel.
With no cautions for the duration of the final stage, all the teams had to save fuel and gamble on going the distance. The latter almost happened, until second-place Riley Herbst, Cole Custer and just about every Ford ran out of fuel with 3 laps to go. Ryan Sieg stalled his car, and that led to a late caution — a caution that tacked on six extra laps to the scheduled distance. And as the field restarted to take 2 to go, Love’s car sputtered on the restart and lost the lead.
Love managed to get the No. 2 refired, but the damage was already done in the form of a 12th-place finish after leading 157 laps in just his second career start.
“Man, I’m just so damn proud of everybody on this Whelen car,” Love said. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”
He also clarified that despite running on fumes at the finish, there was no way he was going to surrender the lead before the race resumed.
“Everybody’s crazy if they thought I was going to pit out of the lead,” Love said. “It’s a gamble, kind of like playing poker, but at the same, I thought I saved a good bit of fuel. I thought some of the caution laps helped us, but that last one felt like it lasted forever.
“I have no idea why, and I’m not going to question whether we could have made it if we had gone back to green sooner, but either way, I’m so proud of this team and this is going to push us forward, for sure.”
As for the sputter on the restart, Love explained…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …