Jesse Love, driver of the #19 NAPA Power Premium Plus Toyota after the ENEOS 150 Presented by NAPA Auto Parts for the ARCA Menards Series West at Colorado National Speedway in Dacono, Colorado, on Saturday, August 22, 2020. (Chet Strange/ARCA Racing)
Jesse Love, driver of the #19 NAPA Power Premium Plus Toyota after the ENEOS 150 Presented by NAPA Auto Parts for the ARCA Menards Series West at Colorado National Speedway in Dacono, Colorado, on Saturday, August 22, 2020. (Chet Strange/ARCA Racing)

Jesse Love Adds Awards To Colorado Win

www.arcaracing.com August 24, 2020

Jesse Love (No. 19 NAPA Power Premium Plus Toyota) was in the longest winless streak of his ARCA Menards Series West career heading into Saturday’s ENEOS 150 at Colorado National Speedway. The 15-year old rookie from California snapped his AMS West losing streak – a streak of just two races! – as he scored his third win of the year in style. Love enjoyed a comfortable lead for most of the race before chief championship rival Blaine Perkins (No. 9 Four Star Fruit Ford) used the benefit of a late string of cautions to stage a duel between the two in the closing laps. Love prevailed by .328 of a second in the end to pick up the winner’s trophy and most of the afternoon’s special contingency awards.

Love turned a quick lap of 83.261 miles per hour in the lone practice session of the day to earn the General Tire Pole Award. Love rolled from the top spot for the second time in 2019, having also taken the pole at Irwindale in July. Blaine Perkins leads the AMS West field with three pole awards, two of which came at the same-day road course doubleheader at the Utah Motorsports Campus.

Love hardly needed to look back once the race started as the show went clean and green for much of the opening stages, unlike the series’ most recent race at Douglas County that produced a season-high six cautions. Love breezed through the first 112 of 150 scheduled laps, clinching the Valvoline Lap Leader and Richmond Water Heaters Halfway Leader awards along the way, before a rogue piece of debris in turn 2 bunched the field up for a restart. Love was the halfway leader for the third time in 2020, equaling Perkins’ total in that category.

Perkins was able to briefly lead on the lap 113 restart and again wrestled the lead away from Love on lap 139, only for Love to sneak back by just in time for a spinning car to bring out a last-minute caution flag and set up a green-white-checkered finish. Love held off Perkins and led his 144th lap of the day as he took the checkered flag, giving him the race win and the lead in the yearlong Lap Leader standings wit 298 laps led. Perkins led the other nine of 153 laps and dropped to second with 282 laps led.

With the win, Love was the easy choice for the Bounty Rookie of the Race award and continues to pull away in the Bounty Rookie of the Year point standings as well. Love has 294 rookie points, leaving him a solid advantage over Bill McAnally Racing teammates Gracie Trotter (No. 99 ENEOS Toyota) with 276 points and Gio Scelzi (No. 16 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota) with 267 points.

The K&N Filters Hard Charger trophy was awarded to Jack Wood (No. 78 Velocity Racing Toyota) at Colorado with his fifth-place finish. Wood, a rookie who celebrated his 20th birthday at Evergreen with an eighth-place run, qualified seventh before driving to a career-best effort and his first top five in ARCA Menards Series West competition. Wood drives for his family-operated team, owned by his father Don Wood, and is crew chiefed by two-time AMS West champion Ty Joiner. While Wood won’t be gunning for a third championship for Joiner this year, having missed the road course races at Utah, strong runs like this will give Wood confidence and momentum for the young driver to roll with going forward.