Love Back In The Top Five In Rain-Shortened Dover Race

Jesse Love (2) battles Justin Allgaier Saturday at Dover Motor Speedway. (Wyatt Tinsley/Motorsports Hotspot photo)

DOVER, Del. – Jesse Love returned to the top five in a rain-shortened NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Dover Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon.

Though he qualified the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet in 12th, Love moved into the top 10 before the end of the first 45-lap segment and earned bonus points in both stages of the BetRivers 200.

After pit stops, Love restarted the final stage in fifth and maintained the position all the way to the race’s third and final caution flag, when rain reached the one-mile concrete oval and ended the race 66 laps short of its scheduled distance.

The end result was Love’s fifth top-five finish of the year and his series-leading 13th top 10, tied with defending series champion Justin Allgaier in that category.

Love’s average finish of 11.9 is also tied with Allgaier for third best among full-time Xfinity Series drivers, behind only Dover winner Connor Zilisch and Sam Mayer.

“Our Whelen Chevrolet was pretty good all race,” said the 20-year-old from Menlo Park, Calif., after all was said and done. “Dover is my favorite racetrack that we come to, but I feel like my balance is a bit all over the place. The car started tight, then went loose, then I was pretty good for a few laps, and then I ended up plowing tight again. It’s so interesting to see how the concrete reacts to rubber, and when you start to lay rubber on rubber, the car’s balance will change.

“Overall, we had speed throughout the run. We weren’t quite where we needed to be to win the race, but I do think we would have had an opportunity if the race would have went back green,” he continued. “If we could have gotten to clean air, I could have had a shot to outrace them.”

While Love started out the day as the fastest driver in practice, he admitted the early numbers didn’t necessarily give an accurate reading of exactly how he stacked up among the frontrunners.

The true answers came later on, despite the fact he still ended up with a top-five finish for the first time since June at Pennsylvania’s Pocono Raceway.

“Concrete racetracks take on a lot of rubber, but they’re really fast right off the truck. So, even my fast lap in practice was kind of an 80-percent lap,” admitted Love. “My second [practice] lap, which was going to be probably a little bit better, I had traffic and even then it was fast enough to be top of the board. But again, once rubber lays down on the track, it slows down a bunch … so you kind of get a false read on exactly where you’re at.

“Honestly, I’d rather have been 10th in practice, but be in the second group to have seen what we actually had and not get a false read,” he added. “That hurt us in qualifying, and having to qualify with a bunch of rubber on the racetrack hurt us as well, but we were able to make some time up early and maintain once we got up near the front.

“It wasn’t everything we hoped for out of the day, but it was still solid.”

Love maintains a grip on a top-five spot in the regular season standings as well, ranking fifth in points and 110 back of Allgaier for the series lead.

With less than two months until the start of the Xfinity Series playoffs, Love is in line to earn at least six extra playoff points toward his postseason total, after locking into the playoffs by virtue of his season opening win at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series heads next to historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Love finished 13th a year ago in his only prior start at the 2.5-mile oval in the ‘Racing Capital of the World’.

Broadcast coverage of the Pennzoil 250 at the Brickyard is slated for Saturday, July 26 at 4:30 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the IMS Radio Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.