Corey LaJoie has not yet had an opportunity to compete for a top-tier team in the NASCAR Cup Series. Will that change in the 2021 season?
Corey LaJoie is widely considered to be one of the NASCAR Cup Series drivers with the most untapped potential in the garage, and his results driving for three of the sport’s underfunded teams in recent years back up that claim.
The 28-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina made his Cup Series debut at New Hampshire Motor Speedway driving for Randy Humphrey Racing back in 2014. But after competing in that race and the race a few weeks later Charlotte Motor Speedway, he did not return to the series until 2017.
Corey, the son of two-time NASCAR Busch (modern-day Xfinity) Series champion Randy LaJoie, competed for BK Racing in the 2017 season on a part-time team that included 32 races, and he recorded a top finish of 11th place at Daytona International Speedway.
The following year, he competed in 23 races for TriStar Motorsports, finishing as high as 16th place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In 2019, he ended up replacing Matt DiBenedetto at Go Fas Racing after DiBenedetto made a gamble by giving up his ride with the team for a better opportunity that ultimately panned out.
LaJoie had a career year in what was his first full-time season in 2019, recording seven top 20 finishes, including the first two top 10 finishes of his career. He finished in a career-high sixth place at Daytona International Speedway and a seventh place result at Talladega Superspeedway later in the year.
While LaJoie is clearly content with where he is at right now having re-signed for 2020 after making it his goal to do so, anybody in his position would be eager to land a more competitive ride. He has even previously joked about landing a ride by “applying” to Joe Gibbs Racing.
Will he land a ride with a top-tier team in 2021? Here are three possible landing spots.
Go Fas Racing
If Corey LaJoie is unable to find an opportunity to compete for a top-tier NASCAR Cup Series team next year, it may very well be in his best interest to stick with Go Fas Racing.
While the Archie St. Hilaire-owned team are not yet able to compete for great results on a regular basis, they have shown progress over the last several years, and that progress should continue throughout the remainder of the 2020 season with LaJoie behind the wheel for a second season.
Ahead of the 2020 season, Go Fas Racing formed a technical alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing. While no two technical alliances are alike and there is no guarantee that the team will end up mimicking the success of 2017 champions Furniture Row Racing through their technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, this is certainly a move in the right direction for the organization.
We saw in 2019 when Leavine Family Racing formed a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing that instant success does not always happen. But as the season progressed with Matt DiBenedetto behind the wheel of the #95 Toyota, it quickly became more common for him to run at the front of the field.
DiBenedetto now drives for Wood Brothers Racing, which have had a technical alliance with Team Penske since 2015. They are reaping the benefits of that long-term alliance, and there is no reason that Go Fas Racing cannot follow a similar path if their alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing continues.
If that happens, LaJoie may be in a good position to stick around. But if he opts not to should a better opportunity open up, where else might he end up?
Stewart-Haas Racing
Stewart-Haas Racing has become synonymous with change in recent seasons. The four-car team have made one driver change from one season to the next for four consecutive seasons, last not doing so between the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
Kevin Harvick is under contract to drive the #4 Ford through the 2023 season after signing an extension before the 2020 season began, and rookie Cole Custer is seen as a long-term option for the team behind the wheel of the #41 Ford after spending three seasons with the organization in the Xfinity Series.
But the other two drivers, Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola, are driving under one-year contracts once again, and those contracts were only announced late in the 2019 season.
Bowyer began driving for the team as Tony Stewart’s replacement behind the wheel of the #14 Chevrolet-turned-Ford ahead of the 2017 season while Almirola began driving for the team as Danica Patrick’s replacement behind the wheel of the #10 Ford ahead of the 2018 season.
But if the trend continues, one of these two drivers won’t be back in 2020. There are talks of Stewart-Haas Racing bringing up Chase Briscoe from the Xfinity Series, but he is only in his second season at NASCAR’s second highest level.
If they do replace one or both of Bowyer or Almirola, would they really opt for Briscoe over the more experienced Corey LaJoie, who is already technically aligned with the organization?
There are several other pending free agents who would be well worth looking into as well, most notably Kyle Larson, who Stewart has had his eye on for many years and actually wanted to sign as his replacement before signing Bowyer.
But assuming many of these free agents, who make up arguably the most loaded free agent market the sport has seen in several years, remain with their current teams, don’t sleep on the possibility of LaJoie ending up at Stewart-Haas Racing.
Hendrick Motorsports
With seven-time NASCAR Cup Series Jimmie Johnson having announced in November that the 2020 season will be his 19th and final season as a full-time driver in the sport, the #48 Chevrolet is easily one of the most coveted seats for the 2021 season (even if the number 48 changes to another number).
More from NASCAR Cup Series
- NASCAR Cup Series: New team set to compete in 2024
- NASCAR: Surprising name continuously linked to new seat
- NASCAR driver at risk of missing the Daytona 500?
- NASCAR set for rare appearance last seen 13 years ago
- NASCAR team adds third car, names driver for 2024 Daytona 500
Many, many drivers have been linked to this ride as potential replacement candidates for one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history, and Corey LaJoie has emerged one of them.
On paper, LaJoie may not appear to be a frontrunner for this ride, especially with how many other drivers have been named and the fact that he .
But LaJoie’s definition of “on paper” is what makes him stand out.
At the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Induction Night prior to the start of the 2020 season, LaJoie wrote a letter — in cursive — to Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick expressing an interest in the vacant seat within the organization for the 2021 season.
While he understands that he may not be the frontrunner at this point, especially since Hendrick Motorsports have publicly stated that their priority right now is not naming a replacement for Johnson, he believes writing a personal letter to Hendrick could go a long way, given his experience and what he has been able to do over the course of several years with smaller teams.
Here is what he had to say about the matter last month, according to NASCAR.
"“I mean, I think you’ve kind of got to stand out. It’s hard to stand out on the race track, especially in the Cup Series, because they’re the best stock-car drivers in the world, driving the best-prepared cars by the best, most-qualified people. So it’s hard to take a 30th place car and make yourself known. So I have to do some stuff off the race track and sometimes you’ve got to think outside the box a little bit. “I have nice cursive handwriting, so I figured why don’t I just pen this guy a letter. I don’t think that I should be necessarily the leading candidate, but I would like to think I’d be on the list because just the experience and all the stuff I’ve gained by doing it the hard way. I think I can kind of fit in their mold pretty well. “I was nervous when I gave it to him, because that guy could change my life and my family’s life forever. That’s why I spent extra time. I started writing it around Christmas and finally got it nailed down. I had a couple of rough drafts that my wife scratched up for me. It reminded me how English was my least favorite subject in school.”"
For which team will Corey LaJoie end up competing in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season? Will he stay at Go Fas Racing? Will he effectively be promoted to Stewart-Haas Racing, or will he leave the Ford organization entirely and end up with Hendrick Motorsports? Could he land elsewhere? Silly Season is just getting started.