Richard Childress Star Publicly Shuts Down Internal Friction After Martinsville Bust

Jesse Love left Martinsville with a championship deficit, a 30th-place finish and a list of mechanical problems that would have tested any race team. Yet when he was asked whether the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing crew needed to address internal issues after the breakdown, Love refused to turn a punishing night into a public blame game. The defending champion had entered the penultimate race of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season with a 19-point lead. By the end of Saturday’s National Debt Relief 250, that advantage had disappeared.