{"id":256156,"date":"2025-11-02T06:22:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T06:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/256156\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T06:22:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T06:22:13","slug":"jesse-love-claims-nascar-xfinity-championship-with-phoenix-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/256156\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesse Love claims NASCAR Xfinity championship with Phoenix victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Jesse Love opened the NASCAR Xfinity season by winning at Daytona and finished it by winning the season finale at Phoenix to claim his first NASCAR Xfinity Series championship.<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old Love gives car owner Richard Childress his sixth Xfinity driver championship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just feel so clean, relieved,\u201d said Love, who did not win between his season-opening and season-ending victories this year. \u201cIt\u2019s been a tough year for me. Man, I\u2019ve just put so much work into it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"NASCAR to allow Cup drivers to compete in more races in O\u2019Reilly and Truck Series in 2026 \" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nascar\/news\/nascar-to-allow-cup-drivers-to-compete-in-more-races-in-oreilly-and-truck-series-in-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"AUTO: FEB 22 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series FR8 208\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762064533_438_\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASCAR also makes changes to the minimum age requirements.<\/p>\n<p>Love passed Connor Zilisch with 25 laps to go and pulled away to win. Zilisch, who won a series-high 10 races, finished third to lose the title.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou work so hard for 38 weeks, yeah, coming up short sucks,\u201d Zilisch said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m still so proud of my team, what we\u2019ve accomplished this year. We have nothing to hang our heads about. We were the best car for two-thirds of the year. We dominated until these last three races.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, it cost us a championship \u2026 we\u2019ll keep our heads high. We are walking home with more than three times as many trophies as anybody else. We won the most races, had the most top 10s, top fives, poles. There\u2019s no reason we should be upset because of this outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"How to watch Sunday\u2019s Cup championship race on NBC and Peacock: Start time, TV info, weather\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nascar\/news\/how-to-watch-sunday-cup-championship-race-at-phoenix-on-nbc-and-peacock-start-time-tv-info-and-weather-november-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"NASCAR: NASCAR Cup Series Championship\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762064533_52_\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, William Byron and Kyle Larson will battle for the title on the 1-mile oval in Avondale, Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>Aric Almirola finished second to give Joe Gibbs Racing the Xfinity owners championship. This is the seventh Xfinity owners title for JGR. <\/p>\n<p>After Zilisch, Brandon Jones placed fourth and Justin Allgaier, a title contender, finished fifth. Carson Kvapil, finished last among the title contenders in 13th place.<\/p>\n<p>Stage 1 winner: Taylor Gray<\/p>\n<p>Stage 2 winner: Justin Allgaier<\/p>\n<p>Next: The series is off until opening the 2026 season Feb. 14 at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2014 Jesse Love opened the NASCAR Xfinity season by winning at Daytona and finished it by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-256156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}