Jesse Love Was Caught Off-Guard Along With Richard Childress Racing Starting Off His Rookie Season

Published 04/27/2024, 5:12 PM EDT

Richard Childresss Racing‘s 19-year-old rookie Jesse Love surged ahead of his rivals at Talladega. The race’s expected chaos unfolded, culminating in a double overtime that propelled Love into the lead. The final laps were marred by multiple car wrecks and subsequent caution flags, with vehicles struggling to maintain control. While the other drivers headed to the pit road for fuel, Love and his crew chief decided to stay out. This strategy had previously backfired in Atlanta when Love, leading the race, ran out of fuel and plummeted to a 12th-place finish. But this time, the results were different.

Love went on to emerge victorious in his inaugural Xfinity Series victory and in what style! Before proceeding to Dover for his next stint, the young prodigy opened up on what worked out for him and his team.

Jesse Love’s RCR stint in 2024 surpassing even his own expectations

A question in a press conference caught Love off guard. An interviewer asked if his performance this season exceeded his own expectations. The No. 2 agreed to that and shared how RCR helped him on this journey.

Love shared, “Yeah I’d say it’s gone better than what I expected. I kind of figured I was going to have to you know, work through a lot of growing pains and things like that. But you know do the grace of God we’ve been really good from the start. And have had a chance to win most weekends. And even we weren’t great, we were still able to kind of grind out a good finish. So I think that’s what’s kind of been the strong point of our team. Is taking a day where we might go run 15th or 10th or something and running fifth, second or ninth. Or whatever it be may be so I think that’s been kind of our strong point of the year so far.”

“And obviously just have a really good group of guys around us. That kind of let us go and do that and kind of capitalize from making mediocre days, better than they should be,” he added.

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Jesse mentioned that overtaking some playoff contenders in Vegas made him realize that he could be a championship contender himself. He felt that he was already progressing faster than anticipated. As a driver, he believed he could relax more during races and take greater risks. His focus was on pursuing wins, playoff points, and stage victories. At the same time, also aiming to win the regular season championship for a better position in the playoffs.

An early piece of advice that had Jesse Love going on

Duke Love, father of Jesse Love, reminisces about a conversation with John Bickford, Jeff Gordon’s stepfather. Love was 12 years old at that time. By then, Jesse had been immersed in racing for seven years, accumulating wins and championships in the Quarter Midgets of America Series and the United States Auto Club (USAC), and gaining significant recognition.

It was Bickford’s advice, however, that would profoundly influence Jesse’s career. Recognizing the same “it” factor that many had noticed, Bickford advised Jesse to ensure that his future actions reflected professionalism. Now, 19-year-old Jesse Love from Menlo Park stands poised to compete full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Hopefully, this is just the start and it is expected that he’ll venture his way further. He has the talent necessary to become one of the greats of the sport, provided he keeps up with the consistency.

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Written by:

Mamata Mukherjee is a NASCAR Writer at EssentiallySports. Combining her love for writing and motorsports she has created some interesting and in-depth stories on drivers like Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Joining ES with 3 years of experience in the field of writing, Mamata feels right at home in her role as a NASCAR Journalist.

Edited by:

Shreya Singh