By: Zach Arnold

The NASCAR Xfinity Series competitors traveled to Georgia for the second race of the 2024 season on Saturday night.

Jesse Love secured the pole position a day before putting his No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on the front row for the second consecutive week as he also won a pole in the season opener at Daytona.

Josh Williams ran into trouble as his left rear tire went down very early into the race. The No. 11 team was three laps behind the leaders by Lap 11. Aside from the issue on the No. 11, the rest of stage one ran under the green flag from start to finish. Love dominated the stage by leading every lap. Jeb Burton and Parker Retzlaff were the biggest movers throughout the field in the first 35 laps, as both gained 15 positions.

Stage two began with Love and Parker Klingerman leading the field to turn one. Klingerman led the first lap of the stage, which made a significant mark on the race, as it was the first official lead change. However, it did not take much longer for car No. 2 to find its way back up front. Single-file racing is how the race went, aside from multi-lane racing off of restarts. The inside lane could not build up enough speed off any restart, as the top lane flew by, and each driver merged into the top lane, killing the outside lane.

The first official caution of the race came on lap 57, when J. J. Yeley’s car spun after contact with Kyle Weatherman. This was a quick caution, and the NXS field was back to green, with 17 laps remaining in the stage. Throughout the final stretch of stage two, the only incident was John Hunter Nemechek hitting the wall that blew down a tire; he was able to make it to pit road without caution. Love goes on to win the second stage. At this point, he had led 78 of the 80 completed laps.

Stage three began with 77 laps remaining, and Love continued to dominate. With approximately 35 laps to go, fuel saving was the important story to watch. The entire NXS field ran over half-second slower laps in an attempt to save fuel. Love was still the leader, with five laps to go; unfortunately, for team No. 2, Kyle Sieg ran out of fuel, which forced NASCAR to throw the caution flag. During this caution, Hailie Deegan, Riley Herbst, and Cole Custer ran out of fuel.

Each team was forced to make a decision to either pit for fuel or gamble by staying out for track position. Love and many others decided to stay out, whereas others went to the pit. On the restart, Parker Klingerman and AJ Allmendinger ran out of fuel as soon as the green flag waved, shortly after Love’s tank was empty.

Austin Hill went on to lead the final two laps. Love finished in 12th after leading over 150 laps.