Jesse Love will be racing without one of his biggest motivating forces when he defends his Xfinity Series/O'Reilly Auto Parts Series title next year.

Love won the championship at Phoenix in controversial circumstances, with the race immediately held up as an example of why NASCAR is under pressure to change its playoff format.

The Richard Childress Racing star had won just one race all year heading into Phoenix – the season opener at Daytona – meaning that he headed into the championship race on a 31-race winless streak (ironically, the kind of winless run for a champion that the playoffs were introduced to avoid).

Connor Zilisch's ten wins didn't matter when it came down to it in Arizona though, with Love simply driving away from the overwhelming title favorite – and his close friend.

Love: Zilisch taking the attention was hard

Love admitted after his celebrations in Phoenix that the talent of his friend Zilisch is one of his own great motivators, saying: "I sat down, and I was like I can't control what Connor does, but I can control what I do.Every day I woke up, he's motivated me to be better.

"I don't like losing to him. I've woke up every day trying to beat him, probably more than myself."

Love will need to find a new yardstick to measure himself against in 2026 though, with Zilisch moving full-time into the Cup Series with Trackhouse Racing.

The 20-year-old had admitted that Zilisch taking the spotlight away from him was difficult to accept for large parts of the year, a tough new experience for the youngster, albeit one he'll feel less of this year.

"It's been really hard this year," he admitted. "At the end of the day, I want to walk in the room and feel like the man. ... For quite a while, once I had like my breakout ARCA season, I was the hottest thing for the most part with the exception of probably Corey [Heim].

"Then Connor kind of took that away from me. It's been really tough, hard to deal with that with just the way that your friends look at you, the way the fans look at you. It's all tough. It was a hard pill for me to swallow."

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