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Jesse Love wins at Phoenix, upsets Connor Zilisch for NASCAR Xfinity Series championship

JHby: Jonathan Howard11/02/25Jondean25
Jesse Love NASCAR Xfinity Series champion
Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

What a run from Jesse Love and the No. 2 team. From a car that couldn’t hold its starting position to the championship. Love upsets his best friend, Connor Zilisch, and steals the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship.

Whatever Jesse Love’s No. 2 team did on pit road to this car, it was like magic. The No. 2 Chevrolet didn’t look like it was capable of even a top-five finish early in this race. Danny Stockman deserves so much credit for this.

Aric Almirola secured the Owners’ Championship for Joe Gibbs Racing. He did what he set out to do in the NASCAR Playoffs. Love doesn’t care. He’s the 2025 champion, and the last under the Xfinity Series brand.

JR Motorsports had three cars in the Xfinity Series championship race. They didn’t win with any of them. Jesse Love and RCR pulled off a heist tonight in Phoenix. Just when it looked like the 88 car had made the adjustments that it needed to make, Love came charging back.

Justin Allgaier led the most laps tonight. He was great in the early parts of this race. 83 laps out front, and Allgaier was cracking jokes and laughing on the radio. He isn’t laughing as much right now. The defending champion came up short of a repeat, finishing P5.

The fight that Jesse Love showed tonight is worthy of a championship, at least, under this format. It was a great race, and now, Love has his first non-superspeedway win (barring a failure in inspection).

Jesse Love makes NASCAR’s worst nightmare come true

The Championship 4 format has been highly criticized, especially leading up to tonight. We can’t ignore that fact. Fans, drivers, crew chiefs, and more have bemoaned the one-race finale. Tonight was exactly why those complaints were so loud lately.

Make no mistake, Jesse Love deserves to be champion. He won under the rules put forth by the sanctioning body. On top of that, we can likely take solace that this is the final one-race championship we will see again in the sport of NASCAR.

During the Truck Series race on Friday night, NASCAR almost had the nuclear bomb go off when it looked like Corey Heim would lose the race and championship. He pulled it off, thankfully, but lightning did not strike twice. Zilisch had a third-place car and lost the title.

This is the thing that NASCAR didn’t want to happen. It is the thing that Kevin Harvick said would be embarrassing if it happened. It has happened. But NASCAR is going to kind of slither out of this one. With fans already knowing a new format is on the way, it just makes tonight awkward. Like the worst, “I told you so” ever from fans.

Jesse Love had the performance of his career. This was his best race in the Xfinity Series to date, and shows that he is going to be a force next season.