How Hailie Deegan Opened Up the Toyota Door for Jesse Love Despite Shifting Alliance Soon After

He is the youngest champion in the history of NASCAR, with three ARCA titles to his name. Jesse Love in his short span of racing career has numerous feathers that adorn his name. The most recent being the 2023 ARCA Menards Series championship, after clinching 10 victories out of 20 races. To say the least, the 2023 season has been the most fruitful season for the driver, as he is set to upgrade to the Xfinity series of NASCAR, beginning from the 2024 season through the hands of Richard Childress Racing.

However, Love’s triumphs are not a story of overnight success, but proving his caliber in every possible way. Moreover, it was also the presence of significant individuals that provided the impetus for the driver to achieve his fame. The driver also does not shy away from acknowledging the people, and this was evident from his latest interview with Eric Estepp.

Jesse Love spills the beans on how Hailie Deegan helped him in his racing career

Apart from being crowned as the 2023 ARCA Menards champion, Jesse Love made his first NASCAR Truck Series appearances in the 2023 season in Gateway, Kansas, and Phoenix. He recorded a P4 finish at the latter, and to add the cherry on top, Love was roped in as the replacement for Sheldon Creed in the #2 Chevrolet of RCR. 

Amidst this rise in fame, Love also had to encounter perhaps one of the hardest decisions in his racing career, his split from Toyota. The manufacturer had helped the young prodigy to kick-start his racing career, right from the grassroots levels of racing. However, he would have hardly been recognized by Toyota, had it been not through the help of his fellow driver, Hailie Deegan.

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Speaking to Eric Estepp in an interview, Love divulged, “I did Junior Late Models in California which is basically a pro-Late Model with a controlled Tire 8-inch control tire with grooves in it and all that stuff and that was a series on Matt TV that Kenny Shepherd put on at Madera which was for like 11 to 15-year-olds, really young kids. The reason he did that was he just wanted to get the youth movement going. Hailie Deegan was my teammate for a year and a half there and that’s why I got in line with Toyota, was because Hailie Deegan was a Toyota driver first, before Ford and all that stuff.

“She was developing at Madera and I was her teammate and I didn’t know anything about, like I knew Toyota because I love Keith Kunz Motorsports and that’s who Kyle and Christopher, and Rico race for. She was one of these pre-race supports or her crew chief was. So I asked the team owner if I can fill out something for me just because I wanted to see if Toyota would talk to me because you can’t go like barge your way in Toyota.”

Beyond crediting Deegan, Jesse Love also let in on the story of how his Toyota drive materialized.

RCR’s newest star reveals how he became a Toyota driver

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Nonetheless, it was anything but a cakewalk for the young driver, to be taken as a disciple under Toyota’s banner. It was not until significant victories to prove his potential that Love was finally able to enter through the gates of his dreams.

Continuing on the same lines, Love added, “Nobody knew where to start, so they reached out a few wins later, I think I won five of the eight races when I was like 12 years old which to them is huge, that’s a lot of promise for them and Toyota is really good at always trying to find the next best thing… That’s how I got the Toyota path and then I kept running some more midgets for Keith Kunz and a little bit, and started running Super Lates for Chris Wimmer. That was a ton of fun, had a lot of fun with Chris.

“And then I obviously got with Bill McNally and ran ARCA West that was when I was like 15 and did two seasons there in one in one two of those championships and then I had two seasons of sucking at Billy’s and then I had a season of winning and then where we are at now.”

With shifting his alliance from Toyota to Chevrolet, it will be interesting to see what awaits Jesse Love in the 2024 season. Whether he will be able to continue on his path of success or will he have a steep mountain to climb, only time will be able to say.

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