Jesse Love Breaks Down His Supercars Experience in Australia and How It Stacks Up Against NASCAR’s O’Reilly Series

Jesse Love’s first competitive step onto Australian soil came amid circumstances that demanded quick adaptation. He made his debut in Adelaide with Image Racing for the final round of the 2025 Dunlop Super2 Series, stepping into the seat originally intended for Kyle Busch.

That plan fell apart when Busch’s media obligations kept him stateside, but the opening created a rare opportunity for Love. The experience offered a clear window into international competition, the depth of overseas talent, and the broader Supercars ecosystem.

Love’s introduction began at Mallala Motorsports Park, where he turned his first laps in an Australian V8 Supercar. The learning proved steep from the outset. Despite his background in midgets and sprint cars, disciplines known for demanding physical input, Love quickly realized the V8 machine asked even more of the driver. He described the car as the most physically taxing he had ever handled.

Reflecting on the experience during an appearance on the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Love explained what it meant to step into an unfamiliar environment aboard an Image Racing-prepared Commodore.

“I ran like the Xfinity series of V8 Supercars. Like what SVG won all his races and championships in. I think he did one year in the new car, but for the most part, it was all basically so that was super cool… But I was okay on speed.”

What stood out most to Love was not the car itself but the caliber of the competition. He came away impressed by the depth of talent throughout the field, even at the Super2 level.

“It was super hard… Overall, the drivers were unbelievable, how good they are… Even in the Super2 deal, it was super competitive… The worst guy in Super 2 was on a road course, the 5th-place guy at Xfinity. There was not that I was like, oh, this guy sucks. It was impressive.”

For Love, the environment felt entirely different from anything he had previously encountered. While he acknowledged that the crowd size did not match that of a NASCAR Cup Series event, the overall atmosphere weighed more heavily than he was accustomed to. The weekend felt less like a single race and more like a motorsport festival.

That realization crystallized once he took in the surroundings beyond the garage. Love noted how the paddock layout placed multiple forms of racing within arm’s reach. Parked beside the Supercars garages sat a Supercross paddock, with a Supercross track running adjacent to it.

As the sun went down, the soundtrack shifted again, with sprint car engines firing nearby. A sprint car track, built just outside the street circuit, came alive at night, adding another layer to the experience.

The result was a setting where fans did not commit to just one discipline. Spectators who arrived for Supercars could take in four or five different racing attractions over the course of the event. That kind of big event stood apart from anything Love had previously experienced in his career.