XFINITY: Jesse Love Wins in Crash-Heavy Race at Daytona
Jesse Love took home his second career NASCAR Xfinity Series win in Saturday night's United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway. The Richard Childress Racing driver became the race's dominant driver once his teammate Austin Hill retired from the race due to mechanical issues after completing 82 laps.
While he has experienced victory in the NASCAR Xfinity Series before, this is the young driver's first career win at Daytona International Speedway, and winning at the legendary superspeedway brought out the emotions in Love.
"I mean, this is the only place I cry during the National Anthem, or kind of get emotional. I'm an emotional guy, as everybody knows, and I try not to hide it," Love said. "But this place is special. You come up racing here when I was at New Smyrna and just wanting to be a part of it, wanting to have the prestige of winning here and say the Lord's name on a big stage."
Love led three times for a total of 30 laps over the race's final 32 circuits, including the final 18 laps.
As Love took charge of the race, the race devolved into a crash fest down the stretch. Three big crashes erupted over the final 13 laps. The final crash, which came in overtime, spelled the end of the race as the caution was called just after Love took the white flag.
.@jesselovejr1 gets the white flag in wild finish at @Daytona to win the @NASCAR_Xfinity season opener! pic.twitter.com/FirJiqEPdw
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) February 16, 2025
Justin Allgaier got into the back of Taylor Gray while running around sixth to trigger the final caution of the race. That bump unsettled Allgaier's car, and sent him down into Jordan Anderson's No. 32 Chevrolet. And from there a shower of sparks, smoke, and shredded body panels ensued.
Love heaped praise on Josh Wise, and Wise Optimization for helping him recently learn how to remain calm on overtime restarts.
"Josh Wise changed my life the other week helping me compartmentalize my mind, and it's easy to because the green-white-checkereds suck," Love stated. "I take a lot of what Josh Wise says to heart and I kind of tapped into the mindset of no fear, no emotion, and no, I guess, anxiety. Just straight will to succeed and will to win."
Coming to the finish behind Love was Sam Mayer, who collected a runner-up finish in his first race with Haas Factory Team, and his teammate Sheldon Creed came home in third-place.
While he would have liked to win the race, for Mayer the runner-up finish did mark his first top-five finish at a track where he has struggled to get finishes throughout his young NASCAR Xfinity Series career.
"First top 5 finish [at Daytona], yikes," Mayer said. "Yeah, we kind of just did everything that we wanted to. The car was capable of it, and [crew chief] Tyler Green up on the roof, he's new to me, so we worked really well together today. So, I'm super pumped to see what we can do the rest of the year."
Creed, who has 18 career finishes of second or third but is still seeking his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win, says he wasn't sure there was much more he could do as he felt Love had a superior car.
When asked what he could have done to win the race, Creed said, "Getting control of the race, obviously. I mean, I tried. I tried to go by the 2 there with 15, 20 [laps] to go and got by him once and then got next to him another time and just didn't quite have the help out back that I needed. But the RCR car was just really fast and he could rebound really quickly like as I'd go by him, he could rebound and go right back by me where it took me a couple [of] laps to kind of think it out."
One of the two JR Motorsports Rookie of the Year contenders, Carson Kvapil finished in fourth, despite suffering a lot of damage to his car in a six-car crash on Lap 6, and Taylor Gray -- another Rookie of the Year contender -- nabbed a fifth-place result driving the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
In the back half of the top-10 were a bunch of feel-good stories among some of the underdogs in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Harrison Burton, who won the NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 for the Wood Brothers Racing team last season, snatched a sixth-place run in his first race with AM Racing, where he'll drive full-time this year.
While Burton admits he had some things throughout the race that he could clean up from behind the wheel, he was happy to get his tenure with the AM Racing team started off on the right foot.
"It's a good start, right? It felt like honestly, we got lucky with how some things worked out and didn't get in some crashes that maybe we could've," Burton said. "I would've like to control the race a little better when I got up front. But with the damage, and all that it was okay. Honestly, just an okay day, feel like there's more potential in the team and the car, a lot we can do to get better."
Jordan Anderson, a part-time racer and full-time team owner, kept his nose clean all race long, and finished seventh, which marks the South Carolina native's fourth career top-10 finish in 26 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts.
Dean Thompson, another member of the talented 2025 rookie class, came home eighth in the No. 26 Toyota for Sam Hunt Racing. Thompson was happy with the fight in his team after some mistakes early in the race.
"We pitted at the wrong time, and I missed my pit stall the first time. There were a bunch of times where I fell back, but my guys work really hard pushing me to the front, so, props to them," Thompson said.
The 23-year-old racer says despite only being together for a few months, he and the Sam Hunt Racing team are gelling together.
"It's why I'm here, man," Thompson stated enthusiastically. "We gel really well, and we kind of complete what we need for each other, and that's why we're working so well together. Pretty happy with it."
Patrick Emerling capped off potentially the best week of his professional racing career with his first-career top-10 finish as he wound up 10th. Earlier in the week, Emerling captured four Modified Series wins at New Smyrna on his path to a Modified championship.
In order to pick up the top-10 finish in the No. 07 SS-GreenLight Racing Chevrolet, Emerling had to rally back from a lot of adversity on the night.
"Yeah, I mean, really cool. We overcame a lot here," Emerling explained. "We had some radio troubles, really intermittent, I was having a really hard time hearing there. But we also had an issue coming down green flag pit[stop], I think my teammate accidentally went into my stall there, and we got pinned a lap down. We got our caution, got the lucky dog and we were able to come back."
Daniel Dye, who is competing for Rookie of the Year honors as the driver of the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, was miffed due to being swept up in a Lap 5 melee, which he felt was caused by Love, the eventual winner of the race, being too aggressive that early in the race.
Big wreck taking out some big names early on at @Daytona. #XfinitySeries pic.twitter.com/A0tLCgdk7W
— The CW Sports (@TheCW_Sports) February 15, 2025
"Jesse was just pushing real hard on Brandon [Jones] there the whole time, and once Brandon checked up to not run over the two guys in front of him, and he gets turned," Dye explained. "I mean, Jesse was pushing real hard, and just not the time for that. I think Jesse knows that."
Jones, the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, also saw his race come to an end in this incident.
Next up for the NASCAR Xfinity Series is the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. That race is scheduled for Saturday, February 22. The CW will provide television coverage of that race beginning at 5:00 PM ET.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.