Denny Hamlin reacts to Corey LaJoie, Spire Motorsports parting ways
During the two-week break in the NASCAR schedule, Corey LaJoie lost his job for 2025, and Denny Hamlin has thoughts on that. Of course, Hamlin has thoughts on everything that has to do with NASCAR.
Spire Motorsports announced that Corey LaJoie will not return to the No. 7 car next year. It was a decision made after three years of improvement and one rough season so far. It was shocking, but the move wasn’t unjustifiable.
Denny Hamlin talked about the separation on Actions Detrimental earlier this week.
“I don’t think it’s the end, I think there’s an opportunity for him. And what my advice would be is to, the same that I said for a long time is, go win man. Go win. Go get, go get some wins. Because he battled, this is back a long time ago, but he battled with Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott in the ARCA series and he raced with them heads up, he did, he raced against them and won races and was very competitive. Now, he kinda skipped Truck Series and Xfinity and all that, just kind of started racing Cup.
“He got a Cup opportunity, it was a backmarker team, but like he got an opportunity to like race on Sundays so he took it, right? So, you never really got that warm and cozy feeling that, well what is he able to do? Right? So I think this is an opportunity, for him to go back down, I think he should go back down a series or two and win. It worked for John Hunter Nemechek for him to build his legitimacy back up into the sport. Cole Custer. And both Cole Custer and John Hunter are both going to get back an opportunity in the Cup Series.”
Denny Hamlin is a team owner. He knows that there are tough decisions to make when it comes to personnel. While 23XI Racing has not released a driver due to performance, those decisions are still highly sensitive and difficult to make.
Spire Motorsports decided that they needed a change. Honestly, LaJoie needs one too. Hamlin is right. The best thing that LaJoie could do is go down a series or two and prove himself all over again. He has to be willing to be humble if he wants to remain a racecar driver.
He has jumped into other series before and won. LaJoie was victorious at Martinsville in 2022 in the modified race. I’m not sure what the answer is for LaJoie, but he has to build confidence in himself.