It’s not uncommon for teammates to cross one another on the race track, and that’s exactly what happened during last weekend’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Kansas Speedway.
Reigning series champion Jesse Love put RCR teammate Hill in a bad aero spot, and the No. 21 spun around, crashing out of the race less than 40 laps into the event. Love went on to finish fourth.
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Hill was not pleased, saying outside the infield care center: “…He just turned left and put it right on my door. I don’t know anyone who can save a car when they don’t have any air on their right rear. These aren’t Cup cars. He was going to have the run down the frontstretch anyways being on the outside like he was, and we could have raced it a little bit. I don’t know man, I’m kind of dumbfounded with how that all transpired.”
A few days, the O’Reilly Series has arrived at Talladega Superspeedway, where the RCR cars are once again the favorites. Love put his No. 2 Chevrolet on pole position, and entered the media room for a press conference soon after.
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Talking things over with Hill
There, he revealed that the two teammates had a very productive conversation earlier in the week, and Love took “full responsibility and ownership for what happened” at Kansas Speedway.
“I have a whole new respect for Austin after our conversation,” said Love. “We talked on Monday. Not to get into the weeds of it, but he could have responded in a lot of different ways and he came to me with a really open mind. We started, and he almost big brothered me in a sense. He gave me some really good advice that wasn’t coming from a sense of frustration or anger. It came from a sense of — I feel like he wants me to learn from this and be better. I learned so much, and there’s a lot of merit to the things that he told me.
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“I think at this point in my career when I have something like that happen, I have to show up the next week and be better because of it. I’m really grateful that I have people like Austin in my life to be honest with me and not mince words, and all the people at RCR to come to me and tell me what they really think. I can go two ways after that, which is either take responsibility and be better because of it, or I’m going to deflect and get defensive.”
He went on to say that the two have been talking quite a bit about this upcoming race at Talladega, where teamwork is key to conquering the 2.66-mile superspeedway.
RCR have won three of the last four O’Reilly races at the track, and these two drivers have combined to lead 240 of 435 laps (55% of total laps run) in those past four races.
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