February 3, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Corey LaJoie feels like a gladiator entering the Busch Clash at the Coliseum

Corey LaJoie expects his short-track experience to be more of an equalizer than the Next Gen car, when it comes to racing on a bullring in Los Angeles.
 
Now in his sixth full season on the NASCAR Cup Series, the 30-year-old racer has never felt he was on even footing with the top teams on the tour. But with a new car and a new venue for the inaugural Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum, LaJoie is brimming with optimism.
 
He’s headed to Los Angeles not just to be in the show. Lajoie expects to “be the show” on Sunday. 
 
“I definitely obviously favor short tracks,” LaJoie said. “It is what I grew up cutting my teeth on, you know had some success there with second and first at Bowman Gray the two times we have been there. That is the closest track that is similar to. I have been to Columbus, Ohio and run well there. 
 
“It is a quarter-mile, more round than the LA Coliseum, so I feel like on paper I’ve got as much stock car experience running quarter-mile small tracks as anybody in the field, as well as our team building solid racecars to have good speed at the last couple Next Gen tests.”

LaJoie has never been with a team long enough to build momentum. Although he spent two seasons with Go Fas Racing, the team shut down in 2020. LaJoie was recruited by newcomer Spire Motorsports for 2021. Once again, he found himself staring over.

The third-generation racer watched his father Randy win two Xfinity Series titles in the mid-90s. While the elder LaJoie only dabbled in Cup, he was a threat on NASCAR’s Triple-A tour for years before building the LaJoie of Seating company into one of the top race driver seat manufacturers in the motorsports. 
 
Corey often jokes that if he wasn’t racing, he’d be working for his father. In his previous 164 Cup starts, he’s posted four top 10s—all achieved at superspeedways. In most races, LaJoie entered the weekend with realistic expectations of a top-25 finish. But the Next Gen car has renewed his determination. 

“I tweeted this the beginning of the year, I have been paying dues for five years in this thing,” LaJoie said. “It’s like when you play NASCAR 08 career mode and you get in with the crappiest team and then you go to the next team and you keep progressing one team at a time to ultimately where you want to go. 

“Then eight years later you are winning races and championship, that is literally how my career has been and it has been eating a lot of crow and learning a lot of lessons the hard way on LIVE television each and every Sunday that a lot of guys would learn on a Saturday afternoon with a lot less expectations. I think now I have just been telling myself like you belong here.”

Entering his second season with Ryan Sparks, LaJoie can continue building his relationship with his crew chief and the No. 7 Spire Motorsports team. On Tuesday, the organization revealed NationsGuard will return to sponsor LaJoie’s efforts at the Coliseum. Having a fully-funded effort is the next step to ensuring LaJoie can hold his own against the uber organizations in the garage. The driver is hoping the Next Gen car enhances his team’s efforts.

“I think that now the competition side has to match what I feel like off the racetrack with the podcast and fans understanding my story and the work I have been putting in on the backend,” LaJoie said. “Hopefully with this Next Gen car and the people we have in place at Spire Motorsports we can continue to match the competition graph up to the off-track momentum that I have behind myself. 

“A lot of this is about confidence and if you don’t believe in yourself to get the job done, nobody else will believe in you.”

Just seeing some of the early results from the Next Gen tests gives LaJoie reason for hope. In previous seasons, knew all the effort he fueled into the old car couldn’t make up the one or two seconds he would lose on the track after the green flag fell. 

LaJoie’s not naive when it comes to comparing Spire to Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing—especially with the resources those organizations will have to expedite the learning curve of the Next Gen car. But when it comes to a more even playing field, at least now LaJoie feels he’s in the ballpark.

“So, I know I can get the job done,” LaJoie said. “This the best chance I have had in my Cup Series career and Xfinity Series career probably in the last decade to be competitive and race for not just a win but a top-10 or just be competitive and rub fenders with guys I usually don’t. 
 
“I’m confident now until we get really get beat back into submission a couple of weeks into the year. We still have realistic expectations, but you know the longer I get into this and the more I am racing around guys that I respect, I keep telling myself right, wrong or indifferent I’ve paid the dues and I belong in the Cup Series. Hopefully, we can start pairing some good runs and good finishes together to enhance that.”