“Like my kid” is how crew chief Danny Stockman described Jesse Love after his 2025 championship. Love believes that when a person is close to someone, they want to perform and win for them. That is the bond the 21-year-old has built at Richard Childress Racing, the team that gave him his first full-time ride when others thought he was too young for the top levels.
Now, a year later, their prodigy is heading to Woods Brother Racing for his first full-time Cup Series season in 2027, and before he goes, he made a point of thanking the team that backed him. In conversation with Sports Journalist Steven Taranto, Love said his playoff run belongs to the whole team, correcting Taranto when he referred to it as Love’s Chase run.
“It’s not fair to say my Chase run; it’s our Chase run as a whole,” Love said. “We have 400 men and women at RCR that work on our cars, whether they’re in the fab shop, the engine shop, or CT Springs upstairs with a suit and tie, or downstairs in overalls. It takes a village to do what we do, and we go up against a Titan, multiple Titans every week. Whether it’s JGR, HMS, JRM, Haas, they’re all amazing teams.”
“And for us to feel that we can put the best car on the racetrack at any given weekend is something that we live for, right? And it might sound a little bit materialistic at times and barbaric to tie our happiness and our self-worth to results in a car, a product that we put on the racetrack. But it means something to us because we live and thrive off that. So I’m very proud of them. I’m proud of myself, but I’m more proud of the group at RCR that has been through so much.”
The 21-year-old’s idea of ‘us’ and ‘our’ when referring to his bond with the team comes from his journey with them. Love made his debut with Richard Childress Racing in 2024 as its NASCAR Xfinity Series program driver. He delivered a sensational rookie season by winning his first race at Talladega Superspeedway, achieving five pole positions, seven top-five finishes, and 18 top-10 finishes.
He also bagged the 2024 Rookie of the Year award. The very next year, the driver had already secured his first championship victory in the format. Cut to the 2026 season, and the driver has spent three years with the racing team and made his part-time NASCAR Cup Series debut with the team in 2025.
But 2026 has been a tough year for the North Carolina-based racing team. Although Love drives for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and is fighting for a championship, he knows the team is struggling in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Love’s success brought the team some much-needed hope, as seeing its young prodigy develop into a full-time driver felt like a personal win. Love took a moment to cheer the team despite the tough run in 2026.
Having lived through this year firsthand, he said he has seen both the good moments and the terrible ones, and seeing the organization get through them took a special group of people in leadership.
When asked what he would take away from his time at Richard Childress, Love said, “Honestly, I don’t know if there’s anything I won’t take away from my time at RCR. I’ve learned so many different things, whether they’re simple things about racing, different tracks, or whether they’re very much deeper things, like what I just talked about with our will to get through what has happened this year.”
“They’re the reason that I am who I am now, and my soul, and my thoughts, and the person that I am has changed over the last three years for much better. And I’m a much better person now than I was when I first got there, so there’s probably not going to be anything that I will not miss. I’m going to miss it all, and I’m grateful for it all, and I’m going to, for the rest of my life, bleed RCR blood and feel that the racetrack, the race team, and the company and the people have changed me,” he concluded.
Love’s message reflects his bond with the team that saw potential over his years and gave him the chance to explore and polish his talent. To wish the 21-year-old racer good luck, the team issued an official statement on the X handle.
Richard Childress Racing is appreciative of Love’s contributions during his three seasons with our organization and wishes him nothing but success in the future. Jesse is a talented racer, and we are proud to have played a role in his development into a NASCAR champion. All parties remained aligned and committed to defending the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship in 2026
A lot of credit for Love’s success at the team goes to his crew chief, Danny Stockman, who shares a close bond with the driver. He has praised Love’s willingness to ask for input.
His support has been evident even when Love struggled with bad races and performances, like his outing at the Watkins Glen 2026 race. What looked like a guaranteed win fell away when Connor Zilisch capitalized on Love’s mistake that cost him the win. Stockman backed his driver instead of being harsh on him because he knew Love would be very hard on himself after the defeat.
As Love’s future in NASCAR looks bright, he has urged his team to keep fighting as he wants to see them win races and fight at the front of the field. For now, the racer is focused on completing his final stint as a NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series driver, with a chance to win a second title with the team this weekend at the Homestead-Miami Championship.
Love trails championship leader Justin Allgaier in second place in the standings with a 22-point gap. So far, the title contender has had a competitive season and will look forward to winning the title with Richard Childress Racing before heading to Wood Brothers Racing next year. He will replace Josh Berry at Wood Brothers Racing to make his first full season appearance with the Martinsville-based legacy racing organization.