Corey LaJoie Disappointed with DAYTONA 500 Finish After Leading Late

With only eight laps remaining in Sunday’s 67th-annual DAYTONA 500, Corey LaJoie and Rick Ware Racing were out in front of ‘The Great American Race’ and pursuing one of the craziest what-ifs in NASCAR’s storied history.

LaJoie, a 33-year-old veteran of the NASCAR Cup Series, had just driven his No. 01 Ford Mustang Dark Horse at the head of the field in the season-opener, piloting an unchartered entry for Rick Ware Racing.

Each individual piece of the driver-team puzzle has a backstory that would make a victory in the most prestigious event of the season a Cinderella-esque story, but put them together, and it’s enough to make a person’s head spin.

Rick Ware Racing has been around NASCAR’s National Series in some capacity since debuting in 1995 but has spent the last eight seasons developing its NASCAR Cup Series program. In the process they’ve been referred to as a “field-filler” or “backmarker” team.

That is, until a couple of seasons ago, when the organization took major steps towards improving its program at NASCARs top-level. It’s an investment that has paid off across the board, including on superspeedways or drafting-type tracks, where the team has been able to put bullets on the racetrack.

Corey LaJoie first planted himself in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2017, driving for BK Racing, and year-after-year slowly inched himself closer and closer to the top of the totem pole, until getting to Spire Motorsports, the team he called home until the final seven races of last year.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-native spent the off-season looking for a new opportunity, ultimately making the decision to join Rick Ware Racing. That decision was fueled by LaJoie’s desire to compete in the top-echelon of NASCAR, even if it was part-time, rather than competing full-time in a top-tier Xfinity or Craftsman Truck Series ride.

In fact, LaJoie said on his podcast ‘Stacking Pennies’ that he was offered the No, 19 for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, which has won nine NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series events in the last two seasons with Christian Eckes, but turned it down to remain in Cup.

It was that decision, though, that allowed him to be in contention to win the Daytona 500.

LaJoie, with DuraMAX and Take 5 Oil Change on the hood of his No. 01 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, led the field to the restart with eight laps remaining, with a pair of talented superspeedway racers, Austin Cindric and Denny Hamlin, lined up on the outside lane.

“You don’t have friends,” LaJoie said when asked if he was surprised that Cindric took the front row, rather than lining up with another Ford. “He’s doing what he’s got to do for that No. 2 team and Roger [Penske]. You got to take the front row if you’re him, you don’t choose second because it feels like you’re choosing second, so you got to choose to front row.”

Shortly after the restart, Cindric, with the help of three-time DAYTONA 500 winner Hamlin, was able to push past LaJoie for the race-lead on the backstretch, relegating the Rick Ware Racing Mustang to sit third in line on the inside.

“[Cindric] was getting a big push from [Denny Hamlin] and my help was loose and he had a nice little fake to the middle, I covered it, then he bounced back out there, so just things I got to learn up there racing with guys that have won these things before.

LaJoie slipped as far back as sixth on the white flag lap, but remained in contention to battle for a top-five result. That was until a crash broke out at the front of the pack, and the journeyman driver was spun off the bumper of John Hunter Nemechek, who ended up going on to finish fifth.

A potential career-best result for LaJoie went up in smoke right then and there, and what could have been a top-five finish, quickly turned into an undistinguished 22nd-place result.

“Here, for what we’re trying to do, it doesn’t matter if you don’t win. Certainly, there is a lot of money involved from potentially finishing third to 22nd. Nonetheless, I think we had a great showing this week, making it out of the Duel and bringing Take Five and DuraMAX to the front at Daytona with 10 laps to go was a pretty special experience. I just hate that we couldn’t finish where we should have.”

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LaJoie spent a significant portion of Sunday’s event running amongst the leaders, including pacing the field for 10 circuits around Daytona – marking just the second time that a driver has led double-digit laps for Rick Ware Racing in a NASCAR Cup Series event.

But, unfortunately for the son of NASCAR Busch Series champion Randy LaJoie, things didn’t play out in the dream-fulfilling way that, at one point, looked like one of the greatest underdog stories in sports.

"It's been me versus the world my entire [NASCAR Cup Series] career."Corey LaJoie

“I was talking to Erik Jones before the race, and it feels like there are a couple of guys, Parker [Kligerman] is included on that list, guys where it just never seems to go your way, like you don’t get that break when you need it, but none the less we’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep fighting, we’re going to keep showing up, we’re going to keep controlling the things we can control, and you do that, you have nights like we did tonight.”

Moving forward, LaJoie will return to the driver’s seat of the No. 01 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he’ll look to capitalize on his superspeedway prowess and better a career-best of fourth – which he first earned at the 1.5-mile superspeedway in Spring 2023.

At this point, the racer-turned-podcaster has “more than five [and] less than 10 [races] sold with the potential for more,” but hasn’t confirmed any other dates in which the No. 01 Ford Mustang will return to the racetrack in 2025.

“We’ll see,” LaJoie said. “It’s just a matter of how much workload those guys can take, and how they fire off for a couple races this year. I’d love to race as many as I want, but I think if you get into the double-digits that’s a bit more than they want to put on their shop.”

“We’ll just keep scratching and clawing and trying to make it all happen.”