Jesse Love wins Xfinity Series pole award at Atlanta, fourth of the season

For the fourth time this season, Jesse Love puts his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevy on the pole, sweeping the Atlanta races this year. While his first NASCAR trip to Atlanta did not go according to plan, Love is prepared to show how much he has improved.

A ton of cars ran out of fuel in the first race at Atlanta. It was a disappointing day for the pole-sitter. However, Jesse Love has the majority of a season behind him now. At this point, he’s not really a rookie anymore, it’s time to perform.

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Love has struggled since the Chicago Street Race. Coming off a P6 at Darlington, is he ready to earn his second win of the season?

What a lap by 19-year old @jesselovejr1! pic.twitter.com/ISbgDlhRC1

— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) September 7, 2024

Jesse Love once again took that ECR engine to the limit. His teammate Austin Hill performed well in the qualifying session, too. The RCR pair might be the favorites for this afternoon based on what we have seen from them on the superspeedways this season.

Taylor Gray will be on the front row with Love. Then it will be Cole Custer, Austin Hill, Sheldon Creed, AJ Allmendinger, Ryan Truex, Chandler Smith, Riley Herbst, and Justin Allgaier in the top-10. Shane van Gisbergen qualified P12, he was P3 in the February race.

SVG showed that he was much more comfortable at Darlington the second time around. He appeared to be much more confident in qualifying as he saw the Atlanta track for the second time.

Jesse Love leading Rookie of the Year battle

This season, Jesse Love and Shane van Gisbergen have separated themselves from the others. It is a two-driver race with Love firmly in the driver’s seat, no pun intended. He has an 89 point lead as the regular season begins to wind down.

Love has one win this season, which came at Talladega, He has 10 top-10s and five top-5s on the year as well to go with four stage wins. Meanwhile, SVG has three wins, all on road courses. He also has seven top-10s and five top-5s along with two stage wins.

In the last five races, Love has an average finish of 18.2. SVG has an average finish of 16.8 in that same five-race span. The Kiwi has scored only two more points than Love during that timeframe, not taking advantage in the points when Love does poorly.

This Rookie of the Year battle will only heat up in the playoffs. Whichever driver makes a deeper run into the postseason will likely end up with the ROY trophy in December.