WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Jesse Love sat in his No. 2 Chevrolet for an extended moment after Saturday’s devastating finish at Watkins Glen International. It was an uneasy bit of reflection, made all the more harsh by how it happened and who had the ultimate benefit.
Love finished with the hardest of hard-luck second places in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at The Glen, letting the lead and what would have been a first victory of the year slip away in the last turn of the last lap. Connor Zilisch, his longtime friend and a road-course standard bearer, was there to pounce, slipping by to win by 0.262 seconds.
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Love, the defending series champion, had been in the unenviable task of managing fuel strategy over the final stretch of the Mission 200 at The Glen, all while watching Zilisch close in through his rearview mirror. The 21-year-old Richard Childress Racing driver said those factors broke his concentration. A late entry to the last turn and a right-front tire lock-up were the miscalculations that gave Zilisch the room he needed.
“It’s been a lot of work,” Love said, apologizing as his voice cracked with emotion. “Sorry, I put so much effort into the road-course side of things over the last year and a half, and because of that, I care so much about it. The pieces were there today, this weekend, and I probably wasn’t missing the skill today, I was missing the mental strength to do my job in a situation like that, and it catches me off guard because that’s not who I am, and I’m better than that. And you know, I probably need to feel this pain for a while to be better because of it.”
Zilisch’s mother was among the first to arrive at the No. 2 Chevy to console Love, and the race winner noted the level of respect that the two have held for each other. Using a similar last-corner move in 2023, Love previously got the better of Zilisch in an ARCA Menards Series thriller at The Glen, brushing his way by at the same point of the course. Zilisch was also on the losing end of their championship battle in last year’s O’Reilly Series finale at Phoenix Raceway.
Saturday, Love took the loss especially hard.
“I’ve been very fortunate to not have many traumatizing experiences in my life, but this is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced,” Love said. “I don’t know why. I think I’m just embarrassed at myself and frustrated. He’s been my pedestal on this style of racing since I met him, and I’ve worked so hard, and so many people have worked so hard for me to have days like this where I come out on the other side of it, and you know, I let those people down today so that I don’t take that lightly.”
On a day where Zilisch, Brent Crews and Shane van Gisbergen had some of the strongest showings, Love eventually rotated to the lead after a pit stop on the 48th of 82 laps, positioning him for a 34-lap run to the finish on his final tank of gas. Love took the top spot on Lap 64 after the pit-road cycle was complete.
Zilisch launched a furious pursuit over the final stretch, pressing on even after his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet suffered damage in a pair of incidents – clipping the inner loop grass and also brushing the final-turn barrier on Lap 77. Love was forced to manage an aggressive fuel-conservation play, all while staying aware of Zilisch’s resilient charge.
No. 2 RCR crew chief Danny Stockman Jr. admitted the finish was difficult to process. Asked about Love’s emotional reaction after the race, Stockman replied, “Yeah, I’m struggling myself.”
The crew chief told NASCAR.com, “These races are so hard to win, and it’s difficult. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, but I’m behind my driver 110%. I try to teach these kids right and right from wrong, and I’m glad to hear that he did a good interview and all that stuff, but it’s just when you’re that close and you’re however many feet it was (behind), it’s just a heartbreak, for sure.”
The defeat extended Richard Childress Racing’s drought in O’Reilly Auto Parts Series road-course races. The last such triumph came in August 2016, when Michael McDowell scored his lone O’Reilly win driving the RCR No. 2 Chevrolet.
For a time, it appeared Love’s teammate Austin Hill might also carry the team’s hopes. He ran second to Love in the late stages until giving way to Zilisch with seven laps remaining. Hill was on the same pit strategy as Love, but his No. 21 Chevy ran dry on the final lap and he coasted home in 11th place. “Very surprised,” was how Hill reacted when a nearly assured top-five finish evaporated.
“I mean, with how the season’s been for us and things that have happened, that’s just another thing to add to it,” said Hill, who has now gone 10 consecutive races without a top five. “You know, I don’t want to call it luck or anything like that, but just the way that we execute throughout the day and the things that have happened to us, I don’t know what we’ve got to do to, like, have some solid days and finish where we think we should have finished. But all in all, hats off to everybody – RCR, ECR Engines. We went for it. We at least tried.”