Corey LaJoie addresses Noah Gragson's role in flip at Michigan

Corey LaJoie had the wreck of the weekend when he flipped completely upside down and flew down the track at Michigan in the FireKeepers Casino 400, forcing NASCAR fans to hold their breath for a few long seconds before he safely exited the car.

LaJoie explained what happened, a result of some tight racing with Noah Gragson over the preceding few laps.

“He didn’t really use me up necessarily but I had got the top burned in and I was making hay and he just closed it a couple times real late,” LaJoie said on his Stacking Pennies podcast while showing in-car footage of what he was talking about. “When someone’s coming with that amount of speed you usually leave a lane.”

Gragson did not, so the two began racing very physically at that point. At one point, Gragson cut off Corey LaJoie on the top lane, forcing LaJoie to come down.

As he did, he tried to clear out Gragson with a small bumper tap.

“I was kind of good with if he just spun off my bumper there at that point in time because he had done it a lot before that even as well,” LaJoie explained.

That didn’t happen.

“So he closed that off, a little bit frustrated,” LaJoie said. “Get a run, tried to get to his left rear to pull him around and probably a combination of me not giving enough margin for error and he comes to the left probably a foot and that thing got airborne quickly. There was a big headwind from Turn 3 into Turn 2. Like 12 to 15 miles an hour. You’re going about 182 to 185 there.

“Obviously that was a concoction for a lift-off.”

Corey LaJoie’s car flew into the air, then came to the inside of the backstretch and flew down upside down. It wasn’t until LaJoie hit the wall and then the grass that his vehicle finally righted itself onto the wheels.

LaJoie explained what was going through his mind during the flip.

“So I hit him and I started spinning out, I’m like damnit, just lock it down, try to keep this thing going,” LaJoie said. “I’ll drive around with flats on and we’ll put tires on it and we’ll still try. I was thinking about that all in the span of it getting sideways, then it picked up and I’m like, ‘Oh s***, I’m flying through the air.’

“There’s like rocks and dust and dirt and my eyes are kind of like closed because my stuff, like there’s sparks and stuff hitting me in the face. I’m like why am I getting stuff in my eye here, I’m like, ‘Oh, my visor’s open.’ So I shut my visor and I’m like holding my visor like this, then I hit the wall upside down and the wheel like rips out of my hand and I was like, ‘Oh, shoot, I’m still going pretty fast, let me grab my seatbelts.’ Then I got to the grass and it was like ugh, ugh, ugh. Bigger than a softball size clump of grass landed right in my lap.”

Corey LaJoie confirmed that he did not save the clump of grass.