LaJoie family enters Turn 3
On Thursday night, Don LaJoie, king of the old Danbury Racearena, reigned as grand marshal at the second of the 2020 Daytona Duels at Daytona International Speedway.
He shook each driver’s hand during introductions. He implored them to start their engines. He rode in the pace car.
“Top of the bucket list,” the octogenarian racing legend from Norwalk said.
“Way cool,” his son Randy said.
On Sunday, Donald Trump will become the first U.S. president, sitting or former, to serve as grand marshal for the Daytona 500. Trump will give the same command to the 40 drivers to start their engines at The Great American Race, and while this undoubtedly will attract millions of social media comments and nearly as many memes, it cannot come close to matching the generational depth of Connecticut’s great racing family.
One of the hands that Don LaJoie shook belonged to his
grandson Corey, 28, who’ll be starting in his fourth Daytona 500.
Three generations of LaJoie. So much racing joy, so many racing challenges.
The two front-row starters at Daytona 500 are determined by time trials. The rest of the starting grid, including five racers fighting for the final two spots, is dependent on the results of the two 150mile duels. On Lap 40, LaJoie’s Ford and JJ Yeley’s Mustang made contact along the backstretch wall and, just like that, Yeley was out of the Daytona 500. Corey was moved from 36th to the rear of the pack for Sunday’s start after front and right-side damage had Go Fas Racing turning to its backup car for him. Connecticut native Joey Logano won the first duel and starts in the third spot.
Although he has finished as high as 18th at last year’s 500, LaJoie is a longshot to win. He did take sixth last July at the other NASCAR Cup Series event at Daytona, the Coke Zero Super 400.
“When you are a racing family and you come out of the Daytona tunnel and onto to the track, you know what’s going to come next: the goosebumps,” said Randy, 58. “I grew up wanting to be like my dad. He was a racer. He used to take us to Daytona. From a racetrack that damn near killed me in 1984 to winning three of the 300-mile events there, this is kind of full-circle for me.
“From where we came from, it’s funny, we’d get up the morning of the 500, buy general admission tickets and then during the race we’d go sit in the high-dollar seats if someone didn’t show up. To sit here now and watch my son race the 500 makes you really proud.”
The LaJoie roots with cars and car racing go deep, planted in 1933 when Don’s father started an auto wrecking shop in Norwalk. LaJoie’s Auto Parts and LaJoie’s Auto Scrap Recycling still stand on Meadow Street. When asked the greatest thing about auto racing, Don didn’t answer championship trophies, money or the competitive rush. He took the broadest societal lane, one that folks who love nuanced mechanics, the real gearheads of the sport, can appreciate.
“The greatest thing is it helped progress our country with the automobile,” said Don, known for his own innovations with independent suspension and multiple disc clutch. “From the mechanics, to innovations, to safety features. Making cars stronger, the rear ends, transmissions, everything. Years ago, a car hit 60,000 miles it was all done. Today you can go 300,000400,000 and it ain’t done. It’s all related to racing. A lot of people don’t give the sport credit for that.”
Said Randy: “My dad would always go, ‘What did you learn today? If you didn’t learn anything, why did you wake up?’ He always pushed you to be better. You hand things along. Corey built his own racing seat. Welded it together. Put it together. It’s a 22-hour process. I don’t think there are many in the field Sunday capable of doing it. I’m proud of Corey. He didn’t buy himself into the 500.”
The extended LaJoie family has gathered in a rented house this week in nearby New Smyrna. There is plenty to reminisce about.
There was the one time that Don, who won a record 58 features at Danbury before it closed in 1981, raced at Daytona. It was in the modified series in the 1970s, a few days before the 500. Built a Chevy Firebird, got it averaging 180 mph, before it gave out.
Then there’s the seminal LaJoie story of the 1932 Ford Roadster convertible. Don put a Chrysler Hemi in it. Put four two-barrel carburetors in it. Started drag racing that baby in Rhode Island, Long Island. That’s how Don got into racing. He never let go of the roadster. His daughter was brought to her wedding in it. Randy still has it at his Concord, N.C., shop.
“It’s all history,” Don said. LaJoie history.
Don started in stock cars in 1959 with a 1937 Dodge at the Waterford Speedbowl. In a different century, Corey worked his way up from kart racing. He has made 93 Cup Series starts over four years, including a career best two Top-10 finishes and seven Top-20 last year.
Randy, the two-time Busch Series (now Xfinity Series) champion, won the Daytona 300 in 1997, 1999 and 2001. Among his 44 Cup Series races, he took a fifth at Martinsville 1998. Seven times he came to Daytona for qualifying. In 1995, he got through to the 500 and took a 29th. In 1984, at age 21 in his first qualifying at Daytona, he survived a spectacular and horrific crash. Find it on YouTube. Off Turn 4, Randy’s car flew underside first at 190 mph into the wall. The car disintegrated.
“I was in the pits that day,” Don said. “Lucky a piece of sheet metal hit him in the back of the helmet, it could have taken his head off. Yep, yep, yep, the angels were with him. Rang his bell though.”
“The bell is still ringing,” said Randy, who like his dad is in New England Racing Hall of Fame.
Randy may occasionally joke about injuries and dangers, but no former racer has been any more dedicated to driver safety. Especially the short-track guys. Especially the grassroots drivers. The five NASCAR drivers killed in the 18-month period in 20002001 hit him. The death of a friend, Dale Earnhardt, at the same Daytona track where he somehow survived hit him profoundly.
He already had started a business, The Joie of Seating, in 1998. Yes, he sells seats. He says he also looks to keep riders out of the obituaries. He has a nonprofit foundation, The Safer Racer Tour, too, founded in 2007. He visits tracks. He inspects equipment. He talks to drivers, who are often more interested in spending on tires than safety.
“Hardest thing I’ve ever done, trying to educate people on safety,” LaJoie said. “I’ve been working with NASCAR Research & Development since 1998. I went to a handful of funerals in the early 2000s. We haven’t lost anybody since. Short-tracks still have. The short-track guy’s life is just as important as the guys racing Sunday. NASCAR does a wonderful job teaching kids on safety every year they come up. Nobody shows that to the guys at the local track. There should be no safety secrets.
“When you climb into that car you are almost playing Russian roulette. You don’t know if you’re going to climb out. But when you put all the safety systems we have today in a car, it’s like removing bullets from the chamber. I’ll play Russian roulette with no bullets. Racing is a dangerous sport. We can make it a safer dangerous sport. It’s 20 years since we lost Earnhardt and whole world knows why. The safety system was no good. Well, the systems are better.”
Randy LaJoie said racing is like a drug. Racers are going to race. No matter what. He knows this as well as anyone. He was this. He’s also still a dad.
“My mom would say the rosary when my dad raced,” Randy said. “She’d say two when I raced. I wish I had some. I’m so nervous when I watch my son. I can’t sit still. You want to be the angel on his shoulder. I’m all over the racetrack, up on the roof. I never got nervous when I drove, never got nervous when I watched my dad. With my son, my fingernails are gone.”