For much of Saturday’s Xfinity season opener at Daytona, it seemed Austin Hill was about to complete the quadruple—four straight wins at the World Center of Racing. He was in charge, sweeping both stages with the kind of effortless dominance that makes everyone else question why they even showed up.
The first stage? Uneventful. But the second? Well, that’s where things got interesting. Sheldon Creed, now in his new ride with the Haas Factory team, attempted to give Nick Sanchez a friendly bump draft while running fourth. Except, instead of a measured nudge, it was more of a full-force battering ram. Sanchez was unceremoniously launched into the outside wall, his debut with Big Machine Racing reduced to a crumpled heap. Meanwhile, Hill casually collected another stage win.
Then came the first ominous sign. Hill’s crew spotted grease on his right rear tire. No big deal, they thought. Just a bit of extra lubrication, right? Wrong. It was a harbinger of doom.
Creed briefly took over at the start of the final stage, thanks to a push from Ryan Sieg, but Hill wasn’t having it. He muscled his way back to the front, restoring order to the universe—or so he thought. By lap 70, he and Ryan Sieg were locked in an old-school dogfight for the lead. But on lap 81, the unthinkable happened.
Hill rolled onto pit road for a routine stop, only for his crew to spot grease leaking from the rear end. And just like that, the dream was over. A race high fifty-six laps led, only to be undone by a mechanical gremlin. “It’s either a rear hub or a gear, or both,” Hill said, clearly gutted. “Such a bummer… I just wish we could’ve lost this race on our own terms.” Meanwhile, the rest of the field collectively sighed in relief.
With Hill out of the picture, Sieg took the lead—briefly. His green flag pit stop on lap 88 set off a chain reaction of chaos when Kris Wright, seemingly forgetting how brakes work, slid hard into Josh Bilicki, sending him into a pirouette. Bilicki, understandably displeased, barked over the radio: “I got Kris Wrighted!” Wright, meanwhile, was out.
That left Creed back in the lead with 25 laps to go—until Jesse Love made his presence known. On the restart, Love took the top spot, but Harrison Burton, also with a new team, wasn’t about to let him have it that easily. What followed was a frantic back-and-forth, with Love showcasing his talent for blocking, swinging between lanes to frustrate both Burton and Creed.
Then, with just eight laps to go, things got spicy. Justin Allgaier attempted an ambitious three-wide move up the middle. Enter Justin Bonsignore, who came down on Allgaier, was sent spinning, and—like a magnet—dragged Sammy Smith and Anthony Alfredo into the mess for good measure.
The result? A three-lap shootout. Love led the outside line, while Creed and fellow Ford driver Sam Mayer lined up below. It was anyone’s race—until, half a lap from the white flag, the midfield erupted in another mangled metal sculpture. Ryan Ellis, Connor Zilisch, and Christian Eckes tangled, dragging Greg Van Alst and Parker Retzlaff into the wreckage.
That set up Overtime.
On the final restart, Love went all-in. He defended every charge, took the white flag, and—just as another demolition derby kicked off behind him—NASCAR threw the caution. That was it. Jesse Love had his second career Xfinity win. The first? That came at Talladega, Daytona’s slightly unhinged cousin, last season.
“We’re winners,” Love said. “We know we are. We all want to win a championship for Richard Childress. Man, that thing was as fast as Xfinity mobile and I’m ready to go get to Atlanta now. It was awesome.”
Behind him, Sam Mayer had to settle for second—and ponder what had just happened.
“Yeah, I’m definitely going to go look at it and see if I can do anything better,” Mayer said. “Because I’m definitely learning as we go.”
Creed, Carson Kvapil, and Taylor Gray rounded out the top five.
Photos: NASCAR at Daytona International Speedway Saturday Feb. 15, 2025
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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