LaJoie still after first major win
LOUDON, N.H. — Ten years ago, Corey LaJoie won more races in a NASCAR regional series season than Chase Elliott. LaJoie even won more races that season than Kyle Larson. LaJoie finished as runner-up — just 16 points back — to Larson in the season points standings.
Larson wrapped up the 2012 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship in the same race a 16-yearold rookie named Tyler Reddick made his debut.
All drivers with so much promise.
Check it out a decade later: Larson is the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion and widely considered the best pure driver in the sport. Elliott won the 2020 Cup title and has a lock on the most popular driver award. Reddick just won his first Cup race and is rising star so in demand that 23XI Racing this week signed him to a deal that doesn’t start until 2024. Then there’s LaJoie.
The 30-year-old driver spent most of his career scuffling through driving for underfunded or upstart teams and had only one top-five finish over his first 182 career starts. But in start No. 183 Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, LaJoie led the field from the inside lane on a restart with three laps left in the race. His first career win in sight, Elliott slid up the banking to cut off his challenger. LaJoie ran out of room and smashed the outside wall. He settled for 21st, a number that hardly shows how agonizingly close LaJoie was to beating Elliott for the win and taking the checkered flag for the low-budget Spire Motorsports team.
“I wish I’d been sitting here looking at the trophy all week,” LaJoie said. “I know that you’re only as good as your last race, and you roll right into Loudon and then everybody forgets about it. For me, it’s a lot of confidence.”
LaJoie led 19 laps in Atlanta, a modest total for most star drivers, but consider, he’s now led 46 his entire Cup career. Is he a one-weekend wonder or can LaJoie — buried in 31st in the points standings — race for a win Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway? Well, his average finish is 29.6 in seven career starts.
“I think the biggest feeling I took away over the weekend was just confidence in the fact that I can do it and Spire is capable of doing it, on occasion,” LaJoie said.
Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez and Reddick all won their first Cup races this season and LaJoie nearly joined the group with the biggest shocker of ’em all.