Certainly, Richard Childress Racing\u2019s Jesse Love is among the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series competitors most looking forward to a return to Phoenix Raceway for Saturday evening\u2019s GOVX 200 (7:30 p.m. ET on CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old reigning series champion earned his first major NASCAR title at the track last November and has turned in an impressive start in 2026 to back up that work.<\/p>\n
Not only is Love the only driver to earn top-10 finishes in all three races this season, the driver of the No. 2 RCR Chevrolet boasts the longest top-10 streak (four) at the Phoenix one-miler among this week\u2019s starting lineup. His average finish in four starts is 4.5 \u2013 including that career-changing victory in the 2025 championship finale.<\/p>\n
Love\u2019s RCR teammate Austin Hill, who won the Daytona season-opener, boasts the top average finish on the year (5.0) and leads his teammate Love by 28 points atop the championship standings.<\/p>\n
JR Motorsports Justin Allgaier, the 2024 series champion, is third in points, 39 off Hill\u2019s pace and brings his own impressive resume to the track, where he is the only multiple time winner (two) on Saturday\u2019s grid. His 13 career top-five and 21 top-10 finishes are most in those categories. He comes into the race having earned the most stage points (47) on the year.<\/p>\n
Joe Gibbs Racing, however, has won at least one of the two Phoenix races for the past eight years and its 18 wins total here is more than double that of any other organization.<\/p>\n
A remarkable, nine drivers have already earned career best finishes in the opening three races. Hendrick Motorsports rookie Corey Day has a pair of top-five finishes in the opening three races.<\/p>\n
Ten different drivers have won the last 10 Phoenix races, an indication of how competitive this track has proven to be.<\/p>\n
Of note, former Phoenix winner (2017) Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Byron will drive the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet Saturday while NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series regular Chandler Smith will drive the No. 5 Ford. \u2026Ryan Sieg will be making his 400th consecutive series start joining Jeremy Clements as the only two series drivers to reach that impressive milestone.<\/p>\n
Practice followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying is Friday at 7 p.m. ET (CW App).\u00a0 NASCAR Cup Series regular, and Arizona-native Alex Bowman claimed pole position for this race last year while Aric Almirola, drove the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to the win.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Certainly, Richard Childress Racing\u2019s Jesse Love is among the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series competitors most looking forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,7574,718,925,4384,49432,12716,634,582,721,82,926],"class_list":["post-516982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chevrolet","tag-craftsman-truck-series","tag-daytona","tag-hendrick-motorsports","tag-justin-allgaier","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-sports","tag-toyota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516982","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=516982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}