By Anthony Caruso III | Publisher
Sponsorships are harder to come by today than they were in years past in the motorsports community. Corey Lajoie is filling in the pinch, as the lack of money is keeping him away from the sport that he loves.
In NASCAR, it is typical for a driver to bring money to the table for a ride, whether it is for a short-term ride or the entire season.
“I’m a Richard Petty Development driver, and they’re always looking for sponsorships for me to drive,” he added. “Everything is so tough nowadays, and while you may think you have a deal, there’s people out there trying to steal it from you. Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the works at the moment. I know I could compete with all the top young drivers, especially Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Ty Dillon, and Dylan Kwasniewski. I’ve beaten them, and at the same time, they beat me. I’m getting behind each week that I’m not racing those guys.”
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Lajoie is not the only motorsports driver hurting by a lack of funding to drive. Many are in his position, and being that he’s the son of a two-time Nationwide Series champion.
In NASCAR, 3M left Greg Biffle to join Jeff Gordon next season. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had the National Guard leave his company following this season, which is reportedly a $32 million hit to his company. In the NHRA, 16-time Funny Car driver John Force is losing both Ford and Castrol in a few months and has been chasing corporate America to keep his operation going forward.
“It’s hard for us, too, because we don’t have the money to be out there,” Lajoie acknowledged. “It’s all about being at the right spot at the right time. There’s hundreds, if not thousands, of kids who have the talent and ability, like me, to be out there, but we have to grind it out and try our best to make it.”
In August, Lajoie signed to be an ARCA Racing Series driver for Team BCR. However, since signing his contract, he has not appeared in a race with the team yet.
“I’m hoping to win,” he mentioned. “Anything short of that would be a disappointment for us. I’ve already been there, where I was competing near the top in each race. I expect to do the same.”
Last season, he made five starts in ARCA, where he led 107 laps and completed 421 of 465 laps, which is 90.5% of the laps.
His father, Randy, was the owner of the car each time he was out on the track. Medallion Financial was the sponsor for three of the races, while Sims Metal Management and Uncle John’s Country Pride Smoked Sausage also sponsored him for a race.
He had three wins in the No. 17 car. He won at Chicago, Pocono, and Kentucky. He finished 4th at Iowa and crashed at Kansas, which caused a 25th-place finish.
“It was really cool,” he stated about the three wins. “We had good people working on the car, and we had good engines in the car.”
He also made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut at Kentucky. He started 15th at the race in the Black’s Tire/Tim Cooksey Oil Company sponsored No. 92. He finished 17th while Trip Bunce was his crew chief.
He returned to the Truck Series on August 21st, where he was in the BTS Tire/Goodyear Fleet HQ/Wynn’s No. 92. He started 21st and finished 10th while having Michael Hester as his crew chief.
In the two starts, he completed 348 of 350 yards, which is 99.4%. He has an average start of 18th and has finished an average of 13.5.
“We had good qualifying for that [first] race, and we started 15th,” Lajoie said. “I had to pit during a green flag lap, which put us down. We couldn’t overcome it, and couldn’t get the wave around. It was definitely a driver error, as I felt like we had a Top-10 ride. My mistake on pit road handicapped us.”
This past June, he returned to the NASCAR Nationwide Series at the John R. Elliott HERO Campaign 300 in Sparta, Kentucky. He was the driver of the Fazoll’s/Kelvinator Commercial No. 98 car, where he started 21st and finished 16th.
Last season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the final race of the season, he was the driver of the Victory Junction No. 9 car. He started 20th and finished 34th.
“It was a cool experience,” LaJoie mentioned of his Nationwide Series debut. “It was a thrown-together deal at the last minute, and we didn’t get the results that we wanted. We weren’t very fast in practice, causing us to qualify where we did. I put myself in a worse position, as I hit somebody, causing us to spin out. The crash moved the splitter down, causing problems for the rest of the race. My debut wasn’t what we wanted. It was cool to compete with those guys. I hope to get some more opportunities to do that.”
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At the moment, the 22-year-old does not have a deal to compete in NASCAR again this season. Like all young drivers, he envisions a day when he could compete in the sport on a full-time basis, like his father did for so many years.
“I would appreciate it,” LaJoie acknowledged. “It would be sweeter since I had to sit on the sidelines and watch while learning the other side of the business. So many other young drivers have been given the golden spoon to be out there all the time. There’s a whole lot more to life than driving race cars.”
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