Corey Lajoie

Lajoie is expected to return to Spire Motorsports for another season in NASCAR's top division. The 30-year-old veteran is now up to 164 Cup Series starts and has quite a bit of experience at this point in his career. Lajoie peddled to just one Top 10 in 2021, but finished a career-best 29th-place in the points with a career-best 24.9 average finish. All expected marks for a small, underfunded race team. Spire returns the No. 7 Chevrolet squad fully intact with the same faces and crew chief Ryan Sparks. Lajoie will try to build on the good things they did, and emphasize those going into the 2022 campaign with the new race car. The return of practice and qualifying will help in that regard. Still, due to team size/sponsorship, Lajoie has a low ceiling and small potential to take a big leap from here.

Lajoie is one of a handful of off-season movers climbing into new race cars this season. He left Go FAS Racing at the conclusion of last season and brought his crew chief, Ryan Sparks, with him to Spire Motorsports. Lajoie will pilot the team's No. 7 Chevrolet and look to build this small race team's performance. Last season saw a host of different driver's in this cockpit and with it a general lack of performance and consistency. The driver conglomerate could only manage two Top-25 finishes. Lajoie brings four full seasons of Cup Series experience to the table and three-career Top-10 finishes. The 29-year-old driver's strength is superspeedway and intermediate oval racing. Those events will be his best starts, while short tracks and road courses are his definite weakness. Those are facts to keep handy when considering weekly lineup formats.

The 28-year-old is returning for season two at Go FAS Racing. Lajoie had a career-best Cup Series campaign in 2019 and grabbed his first two Top-10 finishes. They were both superspeedway events, but great accomplishments none-the-less. Lajoie also posted career-best marks in terms of average start and average finish, so last season was a good effort for this small race team. Randy Cox has departed the crew chief role, so Lajoie will have a new crew chief in 2020. At the time of this writing it has not been announced who will be taking over that very important role. Now approaching 100-career Cup Series starts, this driver is beginning to sort some things out. Depending on who GFR brings in to crew chief for Lajoie that will largely dictate any potential growth and improvement in the upcoming season.

Lajoie is joining Go FAS Racing for the 2019 season and taking over the No. 32 Ford. Sponsorship is coming up just a bit short (10 races), but it's a better situation than it has been in recent seasons. Lajoie comes over from the No. 72 team of TriStar last season. He made 23 starts for that team last season in what was a real mixed bag of performance. Lajoie would net just three Top-25 finishes for that small race team against seven DNF's. The move to GFR is a definite improvement, and a more stable situation for Lajoie. It's easily his best team situation since starting his Cup Series career in 2014. Randy Cox returns to the team as crew chief and will be a good leader and mentor for Lajoie in this transition.

Lajoie's fortunes will ride with what happens with BK Racing in 2018. He made 32 combined starts for this team's two cars last season. In his time bouncing back-and-forth between the No. 23 and No. 83 Toyotas Lajoie earned just four Top-25 finishes. He did have an impressive 11th-place showing in the summer Daytona race, but little else made impact. If BK Racing can get one or both teams back in action in the upcoming season, Lajoie should figure into the picture in some way. - February Update - Lajoie has signed with TriStar Motorsports to race most of the schedule in combination with Cole Whitt in the No. 72 Chevrolet.

Signed to drive part-time for BK Racing in their No. 83 Toyota Camry. It will be only a 14-start schedule for this second generation driver. He will share this team with Gray Gaulding and an array of other drivers. Due to Lajoie’s lack of experience in the Cup cars and his very limited schedule this season, his impact in fantasy racing is expected to be near zero.