Richard Childress Racing is on a glorious streak just two races into the season. The Xfinity Series kicked off 2025 in Daytona and Atlanta, and both RCR drivers rocked the races. The latest race at the 1.54-mile Georgia racetrack witnessed Austin Hill dominating 146 of 163 laps. He fended off hard charges by Aric Almirola and Justin Allgaier to take the victory. His teammate Jesse Love, on the other hand, lagged behind.

The 20-year-old speedster seemed to breathe fire entering the race. Jesse Love won his third straight Xfinity pole in Atlanta with a lap of 174.724 mph. It marked his sixth career pole. That is what stung Love more about his poor finish.

Jesse Love regrets losing momentum

For a young racer who has a perfect record of pole wins across all three starts at Atlanta Motor Speedway, nothing but victory seems to be his fate. In the final round of qualifying on Friday, Jesse Love toppled a field of 10 drivers to nab the starting position. However, he could not keep up that momentum during the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250 race. Love led for 13 laps while his teammate dominated the rest. Love could not translate his Daytona glory this time as he lost track position – the final-lap melee pushed him back to a 16th-place result.

Post-race, Jesse Love scratched his head while dissecting what went wrong with his pole-winning effort. He ascribed his problems to unpredictable track conditions in Atlanta: “It was weird because today we drove right and there wasn’t an issue on the more trimmed-out side of things. I don’t know if there were any wrong moves when I got back there or what. It honestly seemed like…sometimes you just go forward on the lane and sometimes you don’t in the middle of it super strong. I don’t know.” Last year as well, Love had a heartbreaking end to the Atlanta race. The California native led 157 of 169 laps in that race. But he would finish 12th after running out of fuel in the closing laps.

With another heart-rending finish playing out on the same track again this year, Jesse Love looked sad. He continued his description of the event: “Yeah, obviously, once we lost control of the race, we struggled to get track position back. It just comes around it in how we were handling the race – maybe we shook up there…It’s still decent points to have. I still felt like I had control of the race when the 21 was ahead of me. Once we got behind that pit stop, it was not a slow stop, we just checked forward, and it was harder to get back.”

Nevertheless, the RCR team is still on a fiery streak. One can attribute this to the tightly-knit unity inside the team.

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Working and playing together 

When Jesse Love first shifted to a full-time Xfinity Series ride, he was young in both age and experience. In 2024, he jumped directly from an ARCA Menards Series championship to driving the No. 2 Chevrolet for Richard Childress. Despite his big jump, Love had all the support he needed. The united environment inside RCR helped him out. Love can text or call his teammates and ask questions about managing superspeedway races, adapting to intermediate tracks, and various other topics. Austin Hill helped him understand the difference between ARCA and Xfinity, while Cup Series teammate Kyle Busch asked him to focus on the second lane. But another thing united Hill and Love – their love for golf.

Austin Hill reflected on his camaraderie with Jesse Love last year. “I think one thing that’s very similar with the both of us is just the drive that we have to be great. Like we want to go win every race that there is and if we don’t win, we’re both frustrated. You guys don’t see it on our Monday morning meetings, but we’re very frustrated.” Love was simply grateful for the helpful teammates he has in RCR. “At RCR, there’s three really good teammates that are really willing to help each other out and give you honest feedback.” He added, “They’ve been to all these places that I haven’t been to. I kinda learned that from my dad — it’s like ask the people that have been where you’re at before and they’ll help you out a lot.”

Evidently, both Xfinity racers in RCR look out for each other. Although Jesse Love could not shine at this weekend’s Atlanta race, he may roar back into form soon enough.