Jesse Love won the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday night and took the lead in the Chase, the series' championship playoff. He started the night two points behind Sheldon Creed. He leads Justin Allgaier by 36 now, with three races left.
The night turned on Creed. He finished second in the first stage. Under the caution that followed, he said, he shut his engine off, as drivers routinely do, and it would not refire. NASCAR's recap blamed a malfunctioning kill switch. He lost three laps on pit road, finished 32nd, two laps down, and fell from first to fourth, 59 points back.
Love, 21, drives the No. 2 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. He started on the pole, won both stages, the segments that pay points before the finish, and led 156 of the 200 laps. He scored 75 points, one short of the most a driver can earn in a race, according to NASCAR.
The finish was closer than that. Sam Mayer started at the back after an engine failure in practice on his No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet. He ran Love down over the last 35 laps, all under green, and reached his bumper off the final corner. Love won by 0.128 seconds.
Love said afterward that with about 15 laps left, "my best corner was no longer enough at that point," so he started moving around the track to find speed.
Allgaier finished third in the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and is second. Corey Day, who had won the last two races, finished fourth in the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and is third, 39 back. Carson Kvapil is fifth, 79 back, and Mayer sixth, 86 back. The full standings are here.
"I'm looking at the numbers right here, and they look pretty ugly for the old 41," Mayer said.
Sammy Smith finished fifth, followed by Brandon Jones, who fell a lap down after switching to wet-weather tires during a brief shower in the first stage, and Dean Thompson, William Sawalich, Rajah Caruth and Kvapil. Lavar Scott, 19th, was the top rookie.
It was Love's second win of the season and the fifth of his career. His other Phoenix win came last November, the night he took the series championship.
Next is Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 3:30 p.m. ET on The CW, then Martinsville on Oct. 31 and the finale at Homestead-Miami on Nov. 7. Love goes to Talladega with the lead. "I would much rather be in this position that we're in than anybody else is for sure," he said.
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