Jesse Love honors his Rockingham result with a heartfelt tribute to his girlfriend Georgia’s late sister
Jesse Love Jr. won Saturday’s Xfinity race at Rockingham Speedway in an exhilarating overtime finish before getting DQ'd later. During a post-race interview with reporter Kim Coon, the Richard Childress Racing driver dedicated the momentary win to his girlfriend’s sister, who passed away last year.
Her name was Jessica, and she died of melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, leaving her family devastated. Love was seen fighting back tears as he spoke of her passing away.
“My girlfriend's sister passed away about a year ago yesterday, and it's really sunny out today, and she died of skin cancer less than two weeks (from) when she found out,” the driver told Coon. “Go get skin checked today or tomorrow or next week and, it's something you want to get ahead of. So this one's for Jessica.”
It would've marked Jesse Love’s second win of the season; his first one came at Daytona International Speedway earlier this year. He led six times for 53 laps, conserved fuel over the final 96 laps, and delivered for what could've been his third win of his career in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
The pre-DQ moment was particularly exciting for the 20-year-old driver, coming in the first Xfinity Series event at ‘The Rock’ since 2004. Notably, it was his 43rd career start and his first win at a non-superspeedway before he failed the post-race inspection.
Rounding out the top five were Parker Retzlaff, Harrison Burton, and Brennan Poole, while the top-10 finishers were Taylor Gray, Austin Hill, Josh Williams, Jeb Burton, and Daniel Dye. Next up for the drivers is the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Scheduled for April 26, the 113-lap race will be televised on CW from 4 pm ET onwards with live radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Love would've set himself up for a back-to-back sweep, something that he has never pulled off during his Xfinity Series career.
Jesse Love reacts to his car sliding down the straightaway
Jesse Love parked his No. 2 Whelen Chevy at the top of the frontstretch at Rockingham Speedway and hopped off the roof hatch to grab the checkered flag from the grandstands. When he looked around, something quite hilarious happened.
Love stood there, visibly confused at first, while his car rolled down the slope of the racetrack, popping out of gear. Needless to say, there was no way he could have stopped the car with his bare hands.
Turning towards the camera right next to him, Jesse Love said,
“That’s not good.”
Luckily, someone from Love’s crew intervened just in time and stopped the car from hitting the infield wall. All of this happened before his post-race interview with Kim Coon. Perhaps from now on, the Menlo Park, California native, will remember to jam the brakes before getting out of his car.