While fellow American NASCAR star Austin Cindric is making a high-profile wildcard appearance in the main event at the Adelaide 500, Love is flying somewhat under the radar.
The 20-year-old Californian is making his Supercars debut via the second tier with Terry Wyhoon’s Image Racing.
The deal came about through US-based ex-Image engineer Andrew Dickeson, who ran Love last year at Richard Childress Racing.
Love, who won this year’s second-tier NASCAR XFinity Series, has also become friends with Supercars graduate Shane van Gisbergen and is eager to improve his own road course skills through a trip Down Under.
“I wanted to just come over here and try it out and learn something too,” said Love.
“Shane kind of whoops our ass quite a bit in America on the road course.
“There’s probably something to that with some of the techniques he’s learned racing Supercars and racing this level of driver out here in Australia.
“It’s gonna be fun learning. I don’t have any expectations, really, I just want to go out there and learn and get comfortable with the right-foot braking and get used to the track.”
Love had his first drive of the Super2 Commodore at Mallala Motorsport Park earlier this week.
While Cindric has all of Tickford Racing to lean on, Love has been receiving advice from various sources, including Feeney – who first reached out with an offer of help via Instagram.
“I’ve been a fan of Broc since about halfway through last year, just watching him race and stuff like that,” Love explained to Speedcafe.
“So I’ve looked up to him and he’s been a great help and a great guy.
“I felt like I needed some people like that when I came over here, to kind of just lend me a helping hand, I guess, with the small things.
“Like, my pedals weren’t quite spaced well enough for the size of my foot, so Broc was able to kind of help me on that. I wouldn’t have picked up on that if he didn’t tell me.”
Love has also had help from van Gisbergen and will be coached throughout the weekend by former Image Super2 driver Jordan Boys.
“A lot of the ways that I was, heel-toe shifting, there was two main things that I needed to fix, and SVG was able to kind of point that out for me,” Love added.
“That’s also something I wouldn’t have figured out if he didn’t tell me.
“And then also just having Jordy Boys in my corner all weekend to explain to me the flow of the race weekend, the flow of how the car is going to handle and things like that, is really helpful.
“Those three guys have helped me a ton.”
Love reported becoming more comfortable in the Commodore throughout the Mallala running but is not underestimating the challenge ahead.
“It was very productive. I felt like my pace was great,” he said.
“Probably the biggest issue for me was just maybe a little bit of my error count, you know, on the brakes and whatnot.
“Sometimes I would maybe lose awareness of where the left side of my car is. You know, when you’re at the limit, you’re really not thinking about it.
“It’s kind of easy to dip a wheel off on entry or hit a curb in the wrong way.
“So I feel like I have my ideas of where I was actually pretty good, and then some of my areas where I’m gonna have to buckle down and learn a little bit this weekend.”
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