What’s Happening?

At Pocono, Corey LaJoie turned the heads of NASCAR fans for all the wrong reasons as he made contact with Kyle Busch, setting off a multi-car accident in stage three. Fans are not siding with Corey LaJoie on this one, and it’s not the first incident he’s been involved in.

• Corey LaJoie has found that a portion of the fanbase has turned their opinions on him over the past year. It goes deeper than just this past weekend at Pocono, and it has to do with the entire season he’s had to this point.
• LaJoie also is in the best situation he’s ever been in throughout his career. That situation will get even better in 2025. Is it getting close to “put up or shut up” time for LaJoie?
• Fans have been vastly disappointed with LaJoie’s performance so far in 2024. It’s been a downturn from 2023 when everyone, even LaJoie himself, expected a better season.

Where It All Began

The son of two-time Xfinity Series Champion Randy LaJoie, Corey worked his way through the NASCAR ranks throughout the 2010s. He won five K&N East Series (a precursor to the ARCA Menards Series East) races in 2012, finishing second in the standings to Kyle Larson and beating the likes of Brett Moffitt, Chase Elliott, and Bubba Wallace. LaJoie raced primarily part-time in the following years before joining the NASCAR Cup Series for good with the now-defunct BK Racing in 2017.

As LaJoie toiled mostly with underfunded race teams, he developed a small following thanks to his podcast “Sunday Money” on MRN and later “Stacking Pennies” on NASCAR.com. Through this, LaJoie developed a reputation as a loveable underdog, and fans generally liked him.

In 2023, he put together his best season yet with Spire Motorsports. He flirted with the top 20 in points into the summer, and he ended up finishing 25th, a career-best for both himself and Spire, with career-bests in average start (24.8), average finish (20.8), lead lap finishes (22), DNFs (0), top-fives (2), top-10s (3), and laps led (66).

Spire Motorsports also spent plenty in the offseason, including buying out Kyle Busch Motorsports, purchasing a third charter, and signing LaJoie and Carson Hocevar to multi-year contracts. Expectations were high for both LaJoie and the team, with LaJoie saying in the offseason that he expected to win a race in 2024.

How has 2024 gone for LaJoie? To this point, not well at all.

The 2024 Season

LaJoie’s 2024 season started off bittersweet. He finished fourth in the Daytona 500, tied for his best career Cup Series result. However, the conversation focused on what LaJoie did in Overtime, as he contacted Austin Cindric, sending Cindric around and bringing out the caution after the white flag waved. LaJoie and Cindric were not thrilled with each other after the race.

After a 13th-place run at Atlanta, LaJoie was on pace at Las Vegas for a solid top-10 result, his first at a non-drafting track. A spin late in the race derailed his day, and LaJoe publicly criticized teammate Carson Hocevar for something that happened on the track but off-camera during the race.

Since then, he has faded largely into obscurity. He’s sat around 30th in points throughout the season and has only one top-15 finish in the last 19 races. Additionally, Hocevar has outperformed LaJoie throughout the season, with Hocevar sitting 23rd in points with an average finish of 19.8.

If this were a few years ago, people would not have batted an eye, but expectations are higher now. LaJoie is in the best situation he has ever been, and it will only get better in 2025 when Rodney Childers joins the team as the crew chief.

Then, we get to Pocono, where LaJoie hooked Kyle Busch into the infield, ultimately taking out multiple cars. While, yes, LaJoie needed to get back up on the track, he was the one who misjudged it and started the wreck. LaJoie took no responsibility for the accident, saying on the radio following the incident, “[Busch] hooked himself.” Another crew member chimed in and said Busch “Got what he deserved.”

This became the hot topic of the race, with multiple YouTubers chiming into the conversation. Eric Estepp gave his thoughts, saying that it was “not a good look for Corey LaJoie.”

The Iceberg also chimed in, discussing LaJoie’s overall performance downturn this season. He’s gone from Spire’s anchor driver to potentially being on the hot seat in 2025.

RealRadman started his race review by discussing the social media discussion surrounding LaJoie. Following the incident, fans were not on LaJoie’s side.

The damage had already been done, but LaJoie later clarified his viewpoint on his podcast “Stacking Pennies,” noting that he didn’t want to wreck Kyle Busch and said, “I feel bad” about taking out the other cars. LaJoie believes that he did not anticipate Busch losing momentum going into turn one, and as LaJoie tried to go up the track to keep from hitting the apron, that’s where the contact occurred.

NASCAR did not penalize LaJoie for the incident, but Elton Sawyer did say that NASCAR would talk to LaJoie about it. Time will tell if LaJoie can turn his season around and how this ultimately impacts his overall reputation.

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