CLERMONT, Ind. – Jesse Love will return to one of the disciplines his racing roots are entrenched in next week when he heads to Lucas Oil Raceway for the Carb Night Classic on May 28.
Love, from Menlo Park, Calif., will retake the wheel of car owner Tres Van Dyne’s potent No. 5 midget for the marquee event at the .686-mile paved oval, chasing a $5,000 top prize.
The 16-year-old hopes he can rekindle the same magic with Van Dyne that led to his first BCRA midget win in 2018 at Madera (Calif.) Speedway, as well as that season’s BCRA points championship.
“It’s probably been a year and a half since I’ve even run a pavement midget race,” Love told SPEED SPORT Friday night. “I think the last time we raced together, we won. It was a midget race somewhere in California … but we had a really good showing in it and picked up the win, and hopefully we can keep it going now. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to.
“I’m really looking forward to getting the gang back together, and it should be a really fun weekend.”
Though he’s in the midst of a jam-packed schedule – attempting to defend his ARCA Menards Series West championship from a year ago as well as running a handful of national ARCA races and marquee super late model events – Love was determined to fit the Carb Night Classic into his calendar.
“It was something that we wanted to do for a long time, and especially when they announced this deal,” Love noted. “We’ve always wanted to go run these big midget races. I kind of grew up around that scene, so I’m just looking forward to being around it all again and experiencing something new against some really great race car drivers at a place that holds a lot of pull with me as a fan and a driver. I grew up watching midget races at IRP on TV … so I’m looking forward to, hopefully, making my own history there.
“Obviously, if I could win with Tres, it’d be really, really special. We’ve always had a good connection,” he continued. “He was one of my first crew chiefs and somebody that I’ve had a ton of success with over the past 10 or so years.”
Pavement midget racing is something Love calls one of his favorite forms of motorsports but acknowledged it will be a tricky thing to come back to, after spending most of the last two years predominately racing late models and ARCA stock cars.
“Driving a pavement midget is something that you’re always on edge about,” he explained. “If you don’t drive a pavement midget hard, it doesn’t feel good, and you have to drive it really aggressively. You have to get after it and hustle and drive the car hard in order for it to feel comfortable, so it’s something that makes the discipline always fun to drive.
“I’ve always had a ton of success in pavement midgets over my career … so, hopefully, getting back into the seat of one can be a lot of fun and we can pick up where we left off or even be a little bit better.”
Regardless of the outcome next week, however, Love is just happy to see pavement midget racing making a rebound after several years of uncertainty for the discipline.
“Over the years I ran pavement midgets before, it seemed like it was dying off slowly, so to see a big race like this and all these guys getting excited is an awesome thing,” said Love. “It’s just cool to see quality midgets coming out to race on pavement again. It’s something that I think everybody kind of took for granted just how great it was at one time.
“I love seeing people bringing it back and energizing it back up again so that it’s something that everybody is looking forward to,” Love added. “Carb Night is a special deal and a special race, for sure.”