Jesse Love victorious in wild wreckfest at Rockingham

Yahoo

20-04-2025

Motorsport photo
After an action-packed race, slowed by 14 cautions, two red flags, and an overtime — Jesse Love became the lucky driver to take the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet to Victory Lane at Rockingham.
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For Love, Saturday's Xfinity win makes his third career win and his second of the 2025 season. It's also the 20-year-old's first series win at a non-drafting track. He excitedly climbed out the roof hatch of his car, sliding down the windshield/hood as he was presented with the checkered flag. While he did all that, his driverless No. 2 car proceeded to roll down the banking and into the infield grass.
"Oh my gosh," said Love. "These fans are amazing. What an incredible race track. You probably can't even hear me right now (over the fans) but this race track is right up my alley. It's hammer down."
Regarding the final restart, he added: "I don't know if I hit him [Sammy Smith] or if he stumbled, but I just had to get it done. I couldn't lose that one. We just had too good of piece."
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Love also took advantage of his winning moment to urge fans to get themselves checked for skin cancer — dedicating the victory to his girlfriend's sister, Jessica, who passed away almost exactly one year ago from the disease.
Chaos and calamity
The race featured extremely high attrition as most of the drivers in the field had never raced here before, considering the NASCAR Xfinity Series hasn't raced Rockingham in 21 years. One of the only drivers with experience was Kasey Kahne, who was making his first appearance in any NASCAR race in nearly seven years. Unfortunately, he was collected in an early wreck involving Katherine Legge that left him with significant damage. He soldiered on and still finished 15th, but he no longer had a winning car under him.
Kahne and Legge were the first of what would become many drivers to tear up their equipment at Rockingham. 82 laps were completed behind the pace car and a dozen cars failed to reach the checkered flag. The race for the win somewhat resembled Friday's Truck race with several drivers grabbing track position on a fuel-mileage gamble, hoping for enough caution laps to make it without pitting. And like the Truck race, most of them did not make it.
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Leading that group was veteran Xfinity driver Ryan Sieg, still searching for his first win after 377 races and 12 years in the series. He was looking strong out front, fending off multiple attempts by Love to overtake him.
But Sieg's dream of finally winning a national-level NASCAR race ended with less than 15 laps to go.
While cruising under caution, Sieg's car -- running on fumes -- slowed abruptly, losing the lead as he was unable to keep pace. On the restart that followed, Christian Eckes ran out and triggered a multi-car wreck that collected Sieg as well. NASCAR was forced to red flag the race while they dealt with the carnage.
The race resumed with just four laps to go with Smith muscling by Love for the race lead. Another driver [Sam Mayer] ran out of fuel as well, triggering yet another wreck in the midfield. Again, the race was briefly stopped for cleanup.
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After 14 cautions, the event was pushed into overtime with the sun beginning to set behind the track (which does not have lights). Love restarted third, but quickly moved Smith out of the way, reclaiming the race lead and never looking back.
Smith finished second, Parker Retzlaff third, Harrison Burton fourth, and Brennan Poole fifth. Taylor Gray, Austin Hill, Josh Williams, Jeb Burton, and Daniel Dye filled out the remainder of the top ten.
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