The NASCAR Xfinity Series made its first return to Rockingham Speedway for the first time in over 20 years. All the excitement was well-lived as fans were treated to plenty of side-by-side racing along with lots of slipping and sliding around. Fuel Drama once again played a factor, especially late in this race. Jesse Love had the best car throughout the race and was even the driver who took the checkered flag at the end of the race. However, he leaves Rockingham with nothing after post-race inspection.
Love’s No. 2 Chevy was disqualified, and that paved the way for JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith to take his No. 8 to the win.
Jesse Love DQ Leads to Sammy Smith Victory at Rockingham
Despite plenty of rough parts of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. Many drivers from smaller teams were trying their best to take advantage of the struggles of some of the Top stars of the Xfinity Series.
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Kasey Kahne’s Return Goes Pretty Rough
One of the biggest storylines for Rockingham was the return of 18-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner Kasey Kahne. In his first NASCAR-sanctioned race since 2018. He qualified fourth for the race and showed plenty of speed. His No. 33 Hendrickcars.com Chevy for Richard Childress Racing looked good. Still weird to say that, but Kahne was ready to show he still has it.
Things got rough for Kasey during the closing laps of stage one, as Katherine Legge and William Sawalich made contact and wrecked, also collecting Kahne’s car.
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It put a good day in jeopardy for Kahne way too early. Despite the issues, Kasey was able to continue. He ended up with a 14th-place finish despite all the issues on track.
Young and Small Team Drivers Making Noise
This race at Rockingham proved to be a race for the younger and smaller team drivers that make up the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Nick Sanchez used a third-place starting spot to score a stage victory.
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This only led to more competitive racing for other young drivers as Jesse Love and rookie Carson Kvapil fought at the front of the field for a lot of this race. The hard racing made for plenty of drama throughout the field. So much strategy play also led to a first career stage win for Dean Thompson as he drove his No. 26 to the stage two win.
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Cautions and Saving Fuel
The final stage of this race saw a very similar outcome to Friday’s Truck Series race. Drivers were forced to try and save fuel. It was starting to look like it might work out for Ryan Sieg. The Sieg family-owned team has been so close to victory on several occasions. It wasn’t meant to be, as the cautions with less than 20 laps to go only made things harder for Sieg. Losing fuel pressure ended up putting him in a very bad spot for a restart with only a handful of laps.
He got caught up in a wreck when Christian Eckes had no fuel pressure on the restart and stacked everybody up on the outside, and Justin Allgaier, Sieg, and several others got in a crash.
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It also put Jesse Love and Sammy Smith in the catbird seat to duke it out in a shootout for the win. Even an overtime finish wasn’t enough to stop Jesse Love from powering his No. 2 to the line first, in what he thought at that time was his second win of the season.
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Killer DQ
It’s awesome to win a race, especially in a return to such a historic venue. Too bad Jesse Love couldn’t be happy for very long. His car was found to violate Rule 14.14.2.1- 5.h of the NASCAR rule book. That rule has to do with trailing arms and pinion angle shims, according to Reid Spencer from NASCAR.com. That violation resulted in Love’s disqualification, and NASCAR awarded the win to second-place finisher Sammy Smith.
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A huge win for Smith, who was still dealing with fallout from his ugly on-track actions from Martinsville earlier this month. It’s unclear if there will be an appeal, but a DQ after a good battle for the win in overtime leaves a rough taste in the mouth for everyone involved.
READ MORE: Tyler Ankrum Snaps 130-Race Winless Streak in NASCAR Truck Series Return to Rockingham
Featured Image Credit: James Gilbert, Getty Images. 4/19/2025
