RICHARD CHILDRESS RACING TEAMMATES AUSTIN HILL AND JESSE LOVE – MOTORSPORT AMERICA FILE PHOTO
NASCAR Wire Service – One pit-road penalty could have tanked Jesse Love’s day. A loose wheel on Austin Hill’s car could have derailed his efforts. Instead, the Richard Childress Racing teammates both rebounded for excellent days in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with Love wheeling the No. 2 Chevrolet to a third-place finish and Hill driving the No. 21 back to fourth.
Love’s crew incurred a penalty for a tire violation at Lap 49 after the conclusion of Stage 1, sending Love to the tail of the field for the start of Stage 2. Though Love didn’t agree with the penalty — assessed for an uncontrolled tire into the next pit stall, which was unoccupied — the sophomore Xfinity driver centered on the positives after struggling to find the feel he needed in Friday’s practice session.
“It was good because we really struggled on practice day here and even qualifying, I was swatting flies,” Love said. “And I was swatting flies all day today as well. But, man, I was nervous leaving the racetrack yesterday because we were making so many adjustments. I wasn’t giving bad feedback or something because, I mean, we changed everything.
“I’m glad that we made the right decisions because I told Danny (Stockman, crew chief), I was like, dude, just trust your instincts. I’ll trust mine. And if it’s wrong, then it’s wrong. But we’ve got to go with what we think is right. So, we changed a lot of stuff overnight balance-wise and got a lot better.”
Love entered Saturday’s 200-lapper as the Xfinity Series points leader but left second thanks to race winner Justin Allgaier’s 59-point day, two markers shy of scoring the maximum points available. Now 19 points back, Love isn’t concerned and believes he and his RCR group are poised for success next weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But even through five races, the 20-year-old is keeping close tabs on the points tally.
“Even though we didn’t get points that we wanted to today, we still, I thought, maximized the finish,” he said. “Obviously, we have to kind of blow out (the points) next week at Homestead.”
On Lap 72, Hill was forced to hit pit road for a loose wheel, his No. 21 team changing all four tires to ensure each was tightened the second time around. That trapped Hill a lap down for the rest of the second stage, but he remained in position to earn the free pass at the end of the frame to get back onto the lead lap.
“I was just being cool, calm, collected,” Hill explained of his demeanor after the pit stop. “And as soon as the caution came out, Derek (Kneeland, spotter) did a really good job just saying, ‘Hey, man, look, we still have 102 laps to go. We’re not out of this thing yet. We can still go race for a win.’ And it just kind of reset the race for us. It was almost like a new race for us.
“And when we had that restart, just had to get up on top of the wheel and make some things happen early, had a really good green-flag pit stop there, jumped some cars and ended up with a top five. So, for us to rebound like we did, it shows a lot about this organization.”
Hill has two DNFs through the opening five races, but his finishes in the other three races are all top fives: a win at Atlanta and fourth place runs at Circuit of The Americas and Vegas. A 60-point day at Atlanta and a second-best 49 stage points through five events has Hill sitting fourth in the standings, 40 marks behind Allgaier and 21 behind teammate Love.
“I think if we would have finished those two races that you’re talking about, you probably would have seen us just as consistent as (Love),” Hill said. “We’re just having a little hiccups at the start of the year, but it’s still early. I’m fine with getting the hiccups out of here early. That way, when the playoffs start, we don’t have those type of issues.”
Next is Homestead on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where Hill is the defending winner, and Love placed fourth in his debut effort. As two of the four highest-finishing Xfinity regulars at Vegas, the duo also joins Allgaier and Sam Mayer to fight for the first iteration of the Dash 4 Cash of 2025 next weekend.