Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits Jesse Love, RCR title at Phoenix was 'not a fluke'

Jesse Love began the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series season with a victory at Daytona International Speedway. He capped it off with a win at Phoenix Raceway, making him the season champion.

The deck was heavily stacked against Love in the championship race, with JR Motorsports taking up the other three spots in the Championship 4. But on the first Saturday in November, Love was better than Connor Zilisch, Justin Allgaier and Carson Kvapil. It was heartbreaking for Dale Earnhardt Jr., but he accepted that Love’s championship win was no fluke.

“It was heartbreaking,” Earnhardt said on Tuesday’s Dale Jr. Download. “With all that being said… I pause to say anything that’s damaging to the legitimacy of the championship or doing anything that might take away or — I wouldn’t wanna say anything on this show that would rub Jesse Love the wrong way, RCR the wrong way, Danny Lawrence the wrong way. All these people that are a part of that program, there’s people that are at RCR that are like family to me. … As frustrating as it is to lose having three teams against one, they won and the race played out naturally.

“The 2 was fast from the moment they unloaded. The car was a little bit off on the first stage, but they dialed it in, and they had amazing pit stops. They were doing four lugs, maybe three on the lefts but hey, as long as they got all the lugs on the car at the end of the race, they call it fair. They took advantage of every single corner and anywhere they could cut and gain an advantage, they did. I can’t take anything away from them. It wasn’t a fluke, they ran great all night, they passed us, drove by and won the race. Had the faster car at the end when it counted. Under the current format that we ran this year, they did it.”

Jesse Love outdueled JR Motorsports at Phoenix

Love led 34 laps at Phoenix, making the race-winning pass of Zilisch on Lap 176-of-200. Zilisch came up short of winning the championship in his rookie season in Xfinity, a season which saw him win 10 races and set a record with 18 consecutive top five finishes. 

Zilisch was good at Phoenix, but he wasn’t great. Love was, and Earnhardt has nothing but respect for what he accomplished.

“Jesse Love, they’ll celebrate tonight. He’s the champion,” Earnhardt said. “He was sitting at this table and I said, ‘Man, you might win it, and if you do, you’ll represent the series well and we’ll all, regardless of the great season that Connor had, we’re all gonna embrace whatever the outcome is.’ I told myself I would and so, yeah. I could be bitter about it, but that’s not gonna change much.”