Love returns to champion form with O'Reilly Series win at WWTR

In a race that kindled the rivalry between Corey Day and William Sawalich to full flame, Jesse Love showed the form that made him a NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion last year.

Wresting the lead from Carson Kvapil with a gentle rub on lap 165 of 180, Love held the top spot the rest of the way in winning Saturday night’s Nu Way 225 Powered by Bobcat Sauced by Blue Hog at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Love crossed the finish line 0.896s ahead of last week’s Darlington winner, Sheldon Creed, who moved into first place in the Chase standings by three points over top-seeded Justin Allgaier.

Kvapil, who faded to fifth in the closing laps, is third in the standings, nine points behind Allgaier. Love climbed two positions to fourth, 16 points back. Chase drivers Sam Mayer and Taylor Gray came home third and fourth, respectively, in Saturday’s race.

Parker Retzlaff, Brent Crews, Sammy Smith, Kyle Sieg and Jeb Burton completed the top 10.

Love was convinced a chance for his first victory of the season would come if he maintained his grit and work ethic.

“Eventually, one of these opportunities was going to be there, and I’m going to frickin’ take it like the way we frickin’ did tonight,” an elated Love said after climbing from his car. “Man, I love St. Louis. I got my first national midget win across the street with Chad Boat.

“Had my first truck race start here and got beat here last year — had a good car. Just so proud of my team.”

The win was Love’s first at Gateway and the fourth of his career.

Love avoided the pitfalls that eventually hurt other Chase drivers — specifically, a blockaded pit road and the latest in a violent string of incidents between Day and Sawalich.

After a restart on lap 133, Day and Sawalich were racing side-by-side, with Day to the inside, when Allgaier made a move to the bottom of the track with a push from Gray’s Toyota.

With Gray on his bumper, Allgaier moved Day up the track into the driver’s side of Sawalich’s Toyota. Sawalich turned left into Day’s Chevrolet, knocking it down the track into a spin that ended with hard contact with the inside wall.

The accident knocked Day out of the race in 33rd place and left him eighth in the standings, 69 points behind Creed.

“I just hate it for my 17 guys,” Day said. “It was going to be a minimum top-five day for us. We had a really fast car. It’s just really unfortunate.

Day had no message for Sawalich after exiting the infield care center. “I don’t, no. I think he made himself look stupid enough for me [not] to say anything.”

For his part, Sawalich, who finished 16th, opted not to address the incident directly.

“Just worry about next week,” Sawalich said.

The pyrotechnics between two drivers, who also sparred last week at Darlington, followed a bizarre pileup as drivers tried to access their pit boxes.

On lap 49, during the Stage 1 break, a massive chain-reaction wreck just beyond the entrance to pit road scrambled the field and damaged several Chase cars.

With Day already in the first pit stall after the entrance, Rajah Caruth’s No. 88 Chevrolet turned off the bumper of Nick Sanchez’s No. 87 Chevy as the field compressed behind them.

Sanchez’s car slid toward the No. 19 Toyota of Brent Crews, as the pit crew already was servicing Crews’ vehicle. The 10-car melee blocked pit road and trapped Day’s Chevy in its pit stall. Fortunately, no crew members were hurt.

NASCAR red-flagged the race for 7 minutes, 54 seconds to clear pit road. The Chase cars of Brandon Jones and Caruth sustained significant damage and restarted on lap 54 in the back third of the running order.

Allgaier escaped the accident on pit road, only to leave his stall with a loose wheel. A return trip to the pits left the Chase’s top seed 19th in the running order, but by the time NASCAR called the third caution on lap 73 for debris from Anthony Alfredo’s flat tire, Allgaier had clawed his way back to ninth.

By the end of Stage 2, won by Love, the 2024 series champion had worked his way up to sixth. But Allgaier sustained damage to the right front of his Camaro during the Day/Sawalich dust-up, and his 13th-place finish cost him the series lead.

“This is the first time the No. 7 car hasn’t been on top of the points in a long time,” Allgaier said. “That just fuels this team. If we have things go our way, we’ll be right there.”

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