Corey LaJoie enters ARCA Menards Series race for Watkins Glen weekend

This week, Corey LaJoie is dropping back down to the ARCA Menards Series to race for Paris Wixon, Spraker Racing Enterprises in the No. 63 Chevy. Paris Wixon had competed in the ARCA Series West on a number of occasions. However, this will be a major start for the team to have a NASCAR Cup driver in their car.

Jesse Love will really have to earn his eighth win of the year if he wants it to happen at Watkins Glen. The last time a Cup driver raced ARCA this season, Ryan Preece gapped the field and took home the trophy at Sonoma in the West series.

This is the first ARCA Menards Series start for Corey LaJoie since 2013. It will be very interesting to see how well he races in the event and how good his car is. Venturini Motorsports has fast cars, but young drivers. The Cup guy is coming in to show them how to get it done.

Then again, this might be LaJoie taking his chance to race with Frankie Muniz. Who doesn’t want that honor on their resume?

While the No. 63 Chevy is owned by Paris Wixon, the car has generally been set up by Jeff Spraker and Spraker Racing in the past. Dave Mader III, a former part-timer in all three NASCAR national series has driven the car in the past. Mader finished P8 in the 2022 Daytona race.

Most recently in the 2023 season, Logan Misuraca raced the No. 63 at Daytona, Talladega, and Pocono. Corey LaJoie will attempt to put the Chevy in victory lane on the twists and turns of Watkins Glen.

Corey LaJoie needs to go from consistent to competitive

One thing that has worked for Corey LaJoie this season, is consistency. Week in and out, he brings his car home clean and that does a lot for a small team like Spire. If you don’t have to spend money fixing cars, you can focus on finishing races and making more money. Thus, your team builds and you get better results.

With just one DNF on the year, it isn’t hard to figure out why LaJoie, who has a career-best finish of 29th overall (2019, 2021) and 466 points total (2022) in a season is sitting at 26th overall right now.

However, he has to put himself in the top-20 more often. In 12 races he’s accomplished that. At Atlanta in March he was P4. So, he’s shown speed. Lately, though, he’s fallen back in the pack. Three times in the last six races, he’s finished 30th or worse.

In those six races, he has an average finish of about 28th. That just isn’t going to cut it if he wants his team to be where he wants them to be. To his credit, LaJoie leads Austin Dillon and Chase Briscoe in points, two drivers on teams that are much more well-funded than Spire.

Will the ARCA race help Corey LaJoie at Watkins Glen? Probably not, but it could be a confidence booster, a nice reset for the driver.