Love Eager For Better Iowa Xfinity Outcome With RCR

Jesse Love (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

NEWTON, Iowa – Jesse Love is hoping for a better ending to his Iowa Speedway adventure than the one he had in his first NASCAR Xfinity Series visit to the track last season.

During his rookie campaign a year ago, Love qualified ninth and was a top-10 contender early at the seven-eighths-mile, D-shaped oval, but cut a tire at the end of stage two and crashed in turn four.

The impact eliminated Love and left him with a 31st-place finish. Now, he’s back in the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing and wants redemption at ‘The Fastest Short Track on the Planet’.

Love is hoping he can lean on the things he learned at Iowa last summer – plus his four ARCA Menards Series starts at the facility – to author a better result this go-round.

“Our Whelen Chevrolet was fast at Iowa last year, but we blew a right front and hit the fence. There were a lot of question marks about how the repave was going to affect the track before last year’s race, but we learned that the surface has more grip and speed than before,” Love noted. “It’s harder to pass now, which makes the racing different than when I went there in ARCA.

“But more than anything, we want to get our No. 2 car back in victory lane. Everyone on this team is working hard to make that happen.”

Love comes into Iowa ranked fourth in the regular season point standings, with just five races remaining before the start of the Xfinity Series playoffs.

He’s locked into the field of championship hopefuls thanks to his win in the season opener at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway in February, but Love hasn’t held the victory laurels again since then.

It looked like he might have a second victory at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway in April, but a violation in post-race technical inspection stripped Love of the trophy. Since then, he’s been fired up to right the ship – and the scorecard – in his team’s favor.

“We’re motivated; we have been all season, but especially knowing that we need some momentum in the run up to the playoffs,” said Love, who has a series-leading 14 top-10 finishes this season, including five in the last six races.

“Consistency is good, but that alone isn’t going to get us to the Championship 4, which Is where we want to be and feel like our team should be,” he continued. “That’s going to take wins, and we haven’t done nearly as much of that this season as we hoped to. The goal is to fix that starting in Iowa.”

Broadcast coverage of Saturday’s Hy-Vee Perks 250 is slated for 4:30 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.