You have to have confidence to succeed in professional sports, and NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie doesn’t seem to be short on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LaJoie will fill in for RFK Racing driver and co-owner Brad Keselowski in the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Feb. 1 and drive a fourth RFK entry in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 15, assuming he makes the race. He does not have any further Cup Series plans for 2026 as of now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Wednesday, LaJoie touted his ability behind the wheel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“People that know… guys like Brad (Keselowski) that have raced around me, those guys know if I’m with the right group that believes in me and gives me the right stuff to jump in there, I can get the job done as well as anybody,” LaJoie told Kelly Crandall and Doug Rice of SiriusXM.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Am I a Hall of Fame guy? No. But at the peak of my abilities, I feel like I was a top-10 Cup guy. And that’s not something many people can say that are trying to go for these seats.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat the numbers say\u00a0<\/p>\n
LaJoie is an excellent race car driver simply because he made it to the highest level of stock car racing. Few drivers ever make it to NASCAR as a whole, much less the Cup Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But his Cup Series career \u2014 albeit one in which he’s rarely driven elite cars \u2014 has yielded few results. In 276 Cup Series starts, he’s yet to visit victory lane. He has also not won a race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series or the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Indeed, LaJoie has not driven for the best teams in the sport. But truly great drivers can elevate sub-par organizations to new heights. And while LaJoie was a steady hand for the small teams he drove for in the Cup Series, he failed to elevate them in a way that would make him worthy of his self-given top-10 ranking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCorey LaJoie not happy with how he departed Spire<\/p>\n
One of those aforementioned small teams LaJoie drove for in the Cup Series was Spire Motorsports, which LaJoie had a big hand in building from a consistent backmarker to a somewhat competitive organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n