Quick-Witted LaJoie Eyes Victory Lane

Randy LaJoie, two-time NASCAR champion

Here are two examples that prove the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

When SPEED SPORT recently asked Corey LaJoie how he would describe his job driving the #7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet in the NASCAR Cup Series to a newcomer to racing, he was quick to reply, “I’m a glorified Uber driver with no passengers.”

Then there was this answer regarding the best piece of advice his father ever gave him. “He was always like, ‘Don’t fuck around.’ That’s what he wanted to say – and he’s not wrong,” said Corey LaJoie. “When you hit shit, your day ain’t as good as the days you don’t get it.”

While Corey LaJoie’s sense of humor and positivity bring a breath of fresh air, the 31-year-old, third-generation racer has an intense focus on winning at the highest level of NASCAR.

“I still think my biggest wins are still ahead of me,” said LaJoie, who made his Cup Series debut in 2014 and has more than 200 series starts to his name. “I still have a lot of time behind the wheel of a Cup Series car and at the end of the day I want to win a Cup race and fight for a championship.

“But I have some cool memories. It was cool to win my first late model race at Rockingham. “Winning the modified race at Martinsville last year was pretty cool,” added LaJoie. “I don’t have many trophies for good runs, but I definitely have some trophies to show for the future.”

One of the trophies in LaJoie’s collection was won in his first race.

“It was me against another kid; I was probably 5 years old. I don’t know if my dad had the throttle plate tuning on my kart, but I lapped him about three times,” recalls LaJoie. “At the Charlotte track there is a street course for go-karts in the infield and there is a small rectangular track on the front straight. It was probably a 10 lap race. I pestered my dad for about three weeks about where the trophy was and he kept telling me it was in the mail. But I think he just went to the trophy place, took a trophy and gave it to me to shut me up. I still have that trophy.”

Lajoie’s whole life revolved around racing in some form.

“Some of my fondest childhood memories were driving the RV across the country — driving to Gateway, driving to Niagara Falls, when we were at Watkins Glen, Darlington and Rockingham,” he said. “I was probably 6, 7, 8 years old — so about that — when we drove across the country with my dad.

“Growing up, I always had a passion for racing. My parents always kept me in tight spots. I think I was around 15 when I decided to give up the game of baseball, which was also one of my passions, and focus full-time on racing.

While working his way up in racing, Corey LaJoie was also involved in the family business The Joie of Seating, which makes seats for all types of racing cars.

“I was probably 12 and my dad taught me to weld from our chief welder, and I picked it up pretty quickly,” LaJoie recalls. “Dad let the guy go because he was paying $33 an hour and let me start welding seats when I was good enough to save some money on labor costs.

“No, I don’t touch a lot of seats anymore,” Corey LaJoie said of his current role at the company. “I’m trying to make sure our Jonathan Davenports, Nick Hoffmans and the guys who’ve been running our stuff on the dirt side for a long time are taken care of. Most of the time they have things under control pretty well so I don’t have to sit there and weld. My time is better spent trying to make our Spire Motorsports cars faster or spending time with my kids.”

LaJoie and his wife Kelly have two young sons – Levi and Jenson.

“When you have kids, you realign your priorities and realize what counts beyond the result on Sunday afternoon,” LaJoie noted. “My children will be happy when I come home. They will cry and do whatever they normally would, whether I win or come 22nd. That way I can unplug it and then plug it back in when I need to focus.”

Corey LaJoie carries on a family tradition that began in 1953 with his grandfather, Don LaJoie, a star short track racer who earned a place in the New England Auto Racing Hall of Fame.

“I’m not going to encourage you, but I don’t think I’m going to discourage you either,” LaJoie replied when asked if his sons would become fourth-generation racers. “We’ll see if they show interest and start asking, but there’s no way I’m going to force it on them because the cost of advancing it to the point where you’re making money from it is a lot more exponential than it would otherwise be.” Me have grown up It sure would be hard for dad to take her there.”

The Spire Motorsports store, located behind Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, NC, has a championship history.

“I’m kind of a NASCAR history nerd, so I know a lot of facts about Alan Kulwicki. “It’s special to have the opportunity to run out of the business where they won a championship,” LaJoie said. “I’ve known and worked with Paul Andrews before, so it’s cool to hear some of his stories about the store. We’re just trying to keep the legacy of the No 7 strong and get the thing back on the winning track.”

Away from the track, LaJoie uses his sense of humor to entertain NASCAR fans with the uniquely titled podcast, Stacking Pennies.

“I started seeing a sports psychologist when I got into the Cup Series to learn how to keep my confidence up and set goals – even though I was driving for a team that wasn’t able to race in of the Cup Series.” There were things I wanted to achieve and improve over the course of a weekend,” LaJoie explained. “Those were the pennies and we just tried to keep adding pennies to learn and grow, whether it was the speed on the pit lane, the positive attitude on the radio or things that had nothing to do with the speed of the car, that I could control.”

“We started adding all that; If you hit your notes and get everything done, you earn a penny and add it to the stack. Eventually you will have a dollar. It really, really comes down to getting the little details right, and they add up to something substantial in the end. When NASCAR wanted me to do a podcast, there was no question what the name would be.”

Where does LaJoie see his racing career in five years?

“Hopefully I’m still driving a Cup Series car and making a decent living,” he said. “Hopefully our Kickball Classic will continue to do well. It’s great fun and it raises a lot of money for Christian charities. Hopefully I’ll have a few wins in the column. If I’ve been doing it for so long without a win, I think maybe I should think about doing something else. But if I hold out that long, I will definitely end up on the road to victory, I guarantee you that.”

This story appeared in the May 3, 2023 issue of SPEED SPORT Insiders.