Corey LaJoie explains how he's cut down on DNFs
Corey LaJoie still hasn’t recorded a DNF on the 2023 NASCAR season, in what is one of the most impressive stats of this year’s campaign.
Over the last couple of seasons, LaJoie accumulated his fair-share of wrecked race cars, but the opposite has been true in 2023. That’s helped LaJoie’s Spire Motorsports squad stand in prime position to get into the playoffs, despite not being able to put together top ten runs throughout the season.
During an interview with FOX Sports, LaJoie elaborated on the changes he’s made, believing there’s always something the driver can do to keep the car on the track.
“There’s always something you can do unless it’s a mechanical failure,” explained LaJoie. “I think seven or six of the eight were mechanical failures. We had a tire fall off, blew up, we had about every problem you could have go wrong. And even there’s some races where we were running well and then had steering issues where we still finished but just not to the pace that we had.
There’s certainly things I can do different with not bending toe links and overstepping the edge on certain days. So cleaning those two DNFs up that I had last year — you want to push the limit, you want to find the speed, but there’s some times where the risk versus reward isn’t there. So I’m trying to be a little more in tune with that and just not lose focus as a driver was something that I was working really hard at going into the season.”
Alas, Corey LaJoie’s impressive season is poised to continue if he can keep his cars on the track like he’s done in 2023, and there isn’t any reason to doubt his ability to do so moving forward.
Corey LaJoie says filling in for Chase Elliott gave him more appreciation for Spire Motorsports
Continuing, Corey LaJoie was loaned out to Hendrick Motorsports for a week back at Gateway, and it’s caused him to return to Spire Motorsports with a newfound respect.
Many fans and experts alike have been clamoring to see what LaJoie could do in some better equipment, as he’s done just about all he can do at Spire. While it was only one week, and there were plenty of internet issues to go around at Gateway, LaJoie had some trouble at Hendrick, never truly getting comfortable filling in for Elliott.
Still, he managed a solid finish on the day, and learned a thing or two during his venture. During an interview with FOX Sports, LaJoie explained the differences between Hendrick and Spire, which makes his success with the latter all that more impressive.
“Oh, for sure. The amount of information we don’t get here was staggering, whether it’s driver comparisons and stuff — anything that those guys have to continue to hone their thoughts and get better as a driver was big,” explained LaJoie. “But also being a key partner [of Chevy], those guys can see what RCR is running, what Trackhouse is running and what obviously each individual teammate car is running. And that’s a huge tool to be able to progress the entire company. And we’ve been doing that essentially with part-time teammates last year and Ty [Dillon] had a tough start to this year, but he’s starting to find his rhythm.
“Not having a ton of data points, I thought that was going to be where we were short. But then I saw it and I was like, ‘OK, no wonder why these guys are a continual, every year challenger for championships because they’re so deep and they’re so capable.’ They equip their drivers with what they need to get better. And each engineer and every crew chief is pushing each other for a better setup and more aerodynamics and all this stuff. The depth of what they have and the amount of information they have is quite impressive.”
Alas, not only does Hendrick have the best equipment and the best people surrounding their race team, but LaJoie’s insight into the amount of information they receive to improve their cars makes his success with Spire all the more impressive. The team is already batting from further down in the order, but they’re still finding ways to get on base.