Corey LaJoie reacts to in-car footage of wreck with Kyle Busch

Corey LaJoie ended Kyle Busch’s run in Sunday’s Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway after hooking him in Turn 1 off the Lap 120 restart.

Busch blocked LaJoie from the bottom, who then retaliated. Busch’s No. 8 Chevrolet shot up the racetrack and took out multiple cars. LaJoie has since gotten a chance to analyze the in-car footage of the incident and explained what he saw during Monday’s “Stacking Pennies” podcast.

LaJoie admitted he felt bad for Busch, who posted his fifth DNF in the last seven races.

A closer look at what happened between the Nos. 7 and 8 cars from @CoreyLaJoie, himself. pic.twitter.com/xK3Qmz80GK

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 15, 2024

“I do feel bad even for Kyle,” LaJoie said. “I don’t wanna end his day. Randall Burnett, like, we’re buddies. I don’t wanna wreck anybody’s day. So, here watching the in-car of the 8 is what makes it make more sense in my mind of how it all went down. OK, you hear how much he was on the chip there? So, when you’re that deep in traffic, you’re in between grabbing fourth and fifth gear.

“And I was planning on trying to kind of blend back behind him but at the same time, I was committed to kind of fill and get behind him is when he was in the chip. … The amount that he was in the chip, I didn’t anticipate his car losing that momentum relative to mine. I spun him out, took out several good cars behind me which I do feel bad about on Monday.”

Corey LaJoie goes in-depth on incident with Kyle Busch at Pocono

LaJoie went onto finish P19, but obviously, that wasn’t the main talking point surrounding his day at Pocono. He explained after the race what happened from his perspective, saying that it’s a case of having to be “super aggressive” on a restart.

“Restarts are so crazy there,” LaJoie said, via Kelly Crandall of RACER. “If you have any momentum, you have to take it and go to the bottom to stake your ground. I got a big push from [Allmendinger] and it was like four wide, and I went to the left rear of [Busch], and he blocked it once and I stayed straight. I was anticipating our bumpers lining up and then pushing him forward and him taking a lane. But he blocked again when I had more position on him, and [I] spun him out.

“Hate it; took out him and some other guys, but that’s just what you have to do. You have to take momentum when you have it because if you don’t, the guy behind you is going to put you in a worse spot than you’re going to put the guy in front of you. That’s just how the racing is. You have to be super aggressive on restarts and sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug.”