Although Jesse Love is graduating to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2027, the current Richard Childress Racing driver is still putting up a fight when it comes to defending his crown in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, winning the second race in the nine-race fight for the championship.

The Menlo Park, California-native had one of the strongest cars in Saturday’s Nu Way 225 at World Wide Technology Raceway, leading several laps throughout the course of the evening’s event, but really showed up when it mattered with a late-race move around Carson Kvapil for the lead with 16 laps to go.

From there, Love showed absolutely no mercy, pulling away from the Haas Factory Team teammates of Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer to collect his first victory of the year and his fourth in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.

It’s the second win for Richard Childress Racing since the passing of Kyle Busch in May, and it happens at the track where the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion won his last event at NASCAR’s top-level in 2023.

“Guess we had to put them on the dash. Just proud of our crew, our pit crew, my whole Whelen Engineering team,” Love told The CW on the frontstretch post-race. “Thanks to everyone that’s been so involved in repeating the championship this year – it’s been really hard, but I knew if I just keep my grit, keep my tenacity, keep my work ethic, and not just keep it, but improve it, then eventually one of these opportunities is going to be there, and I’m going to frickin’ take it, and we frickin’ did tonight.”

Sheldon Creed, winner of the Chase-opener at Darlington, spent much of the night inside the top-five, and when the checkered flag waved, came home in second place – and thus, took over the lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series point standings.

After starting 18th, Sam Mayer drove through the midfield to finish in third position, his best result since Dover Motor Speedway on All-Star Weekend in May. Taylor Gray had a solid rebound from an early spin to finish in fourth, with Carson Kvapil slipping to fifth after leading a race-high 105 laps.

Parker Retzlaff put together an impressive sixth-place run with Viking Motorsports, while Brent Crews was seventh, Sammy Smith eighth, Kyle Sieg ninth, and Jeb Burton completed the top-10. After sustaining some right-front damage in an incident between Corey Day and William Sawalich, Justin Allgaier limped his wounded No. 7 BRANDT Chevrolet home in 13th.

Other Chase-eligible drivers that finished outside the top-10 include Rajah Caruth in 11th, Brandon Jones in 15th, and Austin Hill in 29th (after having an issue from the top-10 with five laps to go). Corey Day, after getting caught in a wreck with William Sawalich, finished 33rd.

Day spent a lot of the night inside the top-five, but got in a door-banging contest with Sawalich in the final stage of the race, and based on their history from last weekend at Darlington, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver didn’t like that, and doored the No. 17 down the backstretch, sending him off the nose of Justin Allgaier into the inside wall hard.

That wasn’t the biggest incident of the night though.

After Stage 1, the field was coming down to pit road when a giant stack-up occurred and caused a massive pileup that completely blocked the path for drivers to get through and tore up several race cars, including Jeremy Clements, Harrison Burton, and Nick Sanchez.

RELATED: Pit Road Stack-Up Causes Major Wreck; Close Call for JGR No. 19 Crew

Brent Crews sustained damage in the incident as well, when Sanchez’s No. 87 Peterson Racing Group Chevrolet went hurdling into the right-rear of his No. 19, which was parked in the pit stall. Despite a close call, Joe Gibbs Racing says none of the team’s crew members were injured.

Heading to Bristol Motor Speedway for the third of nine Chase events, Sheldon Creed holds a three-point lead over Justin Allgaier in the points, with the top-four only separated by 16 markers.

The Food City 300 at Bristol will take place Friday, September 18 at 7:30 PM ET on The CW.