He may be a rookie in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but Jesse Love has hit the ground running.
The 19-year-old won poles in his first two starts and nearly won the race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, leading 157 of the 169 laps before running out of fuel in overtime. Love bounced back at Phoenix, the most recent NXS race, to finish second — his career-best in four starts so far.
The Menlo Park, Calif., native moved up to Xfinity this year after winning half of the races and the championship in the ARCA Menards Series in 2023. But in a shocking twist, Love left Toyota after the championship to drive Richard Childress Racing’s Chevrolets this year.
Love caught up with Frontstretch‘s Michael Massie at Las Vegas to talk the Atlanta performance, the process of going to RCR and the team’s culture. They even talked about if he’d be interested in doing a crossover with an NFL player with the same last name.
Michael Massie, Frontstretch: So at Atlanta, you dominated the thing. After reflecting on it, does it still sting? What are your thoughts on last week?
Jesse Love: No, I have a different mindset than most people. I don’t really care what the result is, right? I just kind of care about the performance, and I was really proud of our guys. They did a phenomenal job. And I did almost a perfect job, right?
There’s some things that I could have done to save more fuel, and I wasn’t thinking about an overtime finish. So that was where my learning lesson was. But it’s still off to a great start, and we’re really good at points. We’ve collected a lot of points so far. Those playoff points go a long way.
Massie: The thing is, though, a lot of people, I think, grew to respect you after that race. You gained a lot of respect in the garage area. So what’s more important walking away with the trophy or the respect of your peers?
Love: I think you have to find a way to make that go hand-in-hand. I feel like, again, your results shouldn’t impact how people will respect you. Again, if you’re winning, there’s gonna be respect in that sense. It’s not 100% 50/50 or one-to-one.
But at the same time, I feel like I’ve tried to represent my guys in the right way and represent myself in the right way and be genuine about the emotions. I said it, it stung. It hurt a little bit. But at the same time, I was still really proud of our guys and everything that they did up until that point. We should be really proud of…
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