Jesse Love Excited for Wood Brothers Future, Discusses Northern California Racing Roots

Defending NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Jesse Love is in the midst of his title defense in 2026, and though he hasn’t yet visited victory lane, the driver of Richard Childress Racing’s No. 2 remains in the thick of the championship battle, currently second in points with seven top fives and 13 top 10s through 21 races.

And he’s doing all of that in a lame-duck season, as Love will graduate to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2027 with a new-to-him team in Wood Brothers Racing, departing the Chevrolet camp for Ford in the process.

During the race weekend at Sonoma Raceway, Frontstretch’s Danny Peters and Thomas Dunn spoke to Love about coming home to his Northern California roots, growing up racing on the West Coast and coming to the track as a fan.

They also touched on Love’s form this season, his chances to win back-to-back O’Reilly titles and what it will be like next year racing for the Wood Brothers.

Danny Peters, Frontstretch: You’re a Menlo Park, Calif., boy. Is it good to be home?

Jesse Love: Yeah, absolutely, it’s always fun to come home and see family, my mom’s cooking, and then I have a couple of restaurants I like to go to eat. … It’s always fun to drive around and get really good food. We don’t really have the food in North Carolina that we do out here, so it’s always fun to come home. I get to put in good work and get to go surf a little bit and do some things I grew up doing. I don’t really get to do it very often. I feel like I only come to California maybe twice a year.

Thomas Dunn, Frontstretch: Coming home was a big part of what you were when you were on NASCAR Rising. When were you able to get up here after Naval Base Coronado? What’s it like every time rolling back up?

Love: I really enjoyed San Diego. Stayed down there until Monday night, and then I flew home Monday night and have been up in NorCal since then. It’s been great. I really enjoyed San Diego, too. Obviously SoCal and NorCal are two different animals, but I really enjoy both of them for different reasons.

Peters: Did you come here as a kid with your family?

Love: Yeah, my first NASCAR race was here, I think it was the year maybe one of Jeff [Gordon]’s last years or maybe it was the year that Tony [Stewart] won his race here against Denny [Hamlin]. I was really young. But anyway, yeah, that was my first NASCAR race, and it was my mom’s first NASCAR race that same weekend, so it was pretty cool. I remember we sat in the esses and watched from those little concrete stands, and it was really cool.

I really enjoyed it and always loved it up here. I got to run a Legend car race here actually, and it is pretty fast here in a Legend car, a little single seater, and then got to test drive a Miata here before I flipped it out of the park. So I have a couple of different laps here in some different cars.

Peters: You grew up as a Jeff Gordon fan?

Love: I did because my dad grew up racing with Jeff. They were good friends, raced quarter midgets at Baylands [Raceway Park] and some tracks around here. And Jeff was always really kind and good to us, and John Bickford was always a really great mentor to me, me and my dad. And the first NASCAR shop I went to was Hendrick Motorsports to meet Jeff and John and hang out.

Then it was always cool when you came to Sonoma because you can go to Calistoga [Speedway] after and watch the sprint car races, which unfortunately isn’t a thing anymore, but I always grew up liking the guys that came from California … I always respected the hell out of those guys.

Dunn: Speaking of the Northern California background, why did it kind of work for you, just the Northern California racing scene as a whole?

Love: Good question. I think the quarter midget stuff teaches you some good things with some racecraft. How to make speed being wide open is an interesting technique, and while I think there’s a lot to be gained go-kart racing, the quarter midget stuff, there’s still some things you can learn there that you don’t really learn anywhere else. So I ended up growing up doing that.

And then you have the Red Bluff Outlaw scene and the Outlaw cars here, those are really important for development too, good dirt racing here again. I think California sprint car guys — especially the ones that venture out and run East Coast stuff, Midwest stuff — I feel like the best sprint car guys and the midget scenes kind of died down a little bit, but I feel like a lot of the guys out here are really good and specialized to their craft, so I got to run a bunch of different types of racecars while I was out here and kind of do it in a low-pressure environment.

It’s so different on the East Coast, so I definitely enjoyed running all the different cars I got to race on the West Coast. I include going to [Las] Vegas and running the Legends stuff and the Bandoleros stuff at the Bullring and also on the road course out there.

Then, also running the junior late model series, I feel like that gave me seat time in a heavy stock car at a really young age, and, of course, running the pavement midget stuff. I feel like it was the most important for my development because those cars are so on edge, and you have to drive them so hard to make speed. So it’s kind of a plethora of a lot of things

Dunn: From a bigger-picture lens, you mentioned kind of just all the different guys who have kind of made it, there’s a lot of Northern California-like influence. Why do you kind of think that is? People may not necessarily see Northern California as this driver-development hotbed.

Love: I feel like California has made a lot of the drivers, I don’t know if that’s just luck of the draw. I don’t know if that’s just like a bias because that’s what I’m looking at because I’m from there, or if it is there’s some things that make it real. I just think that when you’re on the East Coast, you’re born on the East Coast … and then you don’t, you don’t ever leave the East Coast, right? But when you’re born on the West Coast, you’re learning some different philosophies and driving some different cars, racing some different people, and then you move out to the East Coast. So then, the guys that grew up on the East Coast don’t ever have that time on the West Coast to hear some different things, run some really tricky racetracks.

I mean, a lot of the dirt tracks … it’s really technical and rough and pretty sketchy in some areas, right? California dirt tracks are definitely a lot different than anywhere else. You go to the Midwest and it’s super glass-slick and smooth, and on the West Coast it’s crazy and pulled up and technical. So I just think that it’s all perception and you can kind of broaden your horizons a little bit when you grow up on the West Coast, and that can make you better down the road.

Peters: Some big names have won back-to-back O’Reilly championships. What would it mean to you to go back-to-back and be the first since Tyler Reddick?

Love: It’s definitely the thing I’m aiming for this year. We’ve had a lot of things, some in our control and some out of our control, a lot of people would call it luck. I don’t really use that word, but most people would call it just bad luck. We’ve had a pretty trying year, and that’s kind of been my north star of what’s keeping me motivated. And through all of it, I’m still in a great position to win another championship.

It was nice to finally get some points on [Justin] Allgaier last weekend, but it’s going to be really challenging to get to him to win the regular-season title. But I have this weird mental block that it’s not over until it’s mathematically not possible anymore. So I’m still focused on winning the regular-season title, and then when the postseason starts, I always feel like I rise to the occasion and I can be the best, and I think our team can be the best.

Last year we didn’t have the speed to really win races and dominate a lot. We had a couple, but we executed really well, and this year we’ve actually had the speed to finally dominate races and win races, and we just haven’t put it together yet. So I think that we were able to overcome the speed factor last year, and this year we have overcome the speed factor and we have to overcome the beating ourselves on some things.

It’s kind of like golf, right? You keep hitting terrible golf shots [but] the good, the flush ones are right around the corner. So I think that once we break through and win one, we’ll win a couple, and I think in the postseason our team is really good under pressure, and hopefully we’re the best this year under pressure.

Peters: Next year you step into an iconic car number with an iconic team, thoughts and feelings about that for next year?

Love: I’m super honored, and obviously to have the trust from the Wood Brothers and of course Ford as well, and everybody at Team Penske is a huge honor for me, it’s something that I don’t take lightly. … And that’s what I love about it. I never had any intentions to get a Cup deal signed and then just, OK, take it easy and chillax. I want to keep working, and that’s what I find enjoyment in, chasing the mastery of my craft and what I do, what I love to do and getting better.

So next year, there’s gonna be a lot of ways that I’m going to keep learning to get better. You want to succeed and move up and of course continue to race Cup and get into your second contract year and win races and set yourself up for success. I’m really grateful I can do that from a young age. I just feel like I have a great group of people around me, also to help me succeed next year in a tough environment in the Cup Series.

Peters: What will it be like with a new voice in your ear?

Love: It’s going to be interesting. I’m somebody I feel like — again, maybe because I grew up in California where you have a melting pot of different cultures — but I feel like I can fit into just about any culture and work with different people. I do enjoy the personal development, the people development and the relationships developing and things like that, and the lessons I’ve learned from Danny [Stockman] I’ll never forget. I think that we’re still going to be friends off the racetrack. He’s more than a crew chief to me at this point, and maybe not working together might make the friendship a little bit better so we can kind of take the pressure off.

But it’s gonna be different, and it’s gonna be a challenge because Danny’s somebody that I really love and appreciate. … I know whatever position the Wood Brothers decide to put me in is going to be a good one, and I’ll make the most of it.