Late in the 2024 NASCAR season, Rick Ware Racing and Spire Motorsports did a driver swap that sent Justin Haley from RWR to Spire Motorsports and Corey LaJoie from Spire to WRW. At the end of the season, LaJoie found himself out of a job but there were offers on the table!
LaJoie has chosen to go part time behind the wheel with a little time in the broadcast booth.
Staying with RWR, LaJoie will run a limited schedule driving the 01 car. He will continue with his “Stacking Pennies” podcast, and will join the broadcast booth as a race analyst for the new NASCAR network Prime Video which will be broadcast five races beginning with the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and run through the race at Pocono Raceway.
LaJoie spoke on his decision saying, “The Amazon piece is one of the reasons why this year is going to look a little bit different. When those guys were pursuing me towards the end of last year, I felt like there were things that were materializing in my life and doors that were opening from the Lord to allow me to see that there are other things that I can do outside of being a full-time Cup driver.”
He added, “my entire racing life, since I was seven years old, I’ve been blindly focused on being a competitive race-winning Cup Series driver. I’ve worked and leveraged and did everything with that clear vision in mind. The way this past year went and the way my cards were dealt of not being in the right system at the right time, you can always Monday morning quarterback it because hindsight is always 20/20 as far as what you would change. But I think everything happened for a reason with the way my career had gone up to this point.”
After being singed to Amazon after a single interview LaJoie noted, “with the Amazon guys knocking on my door and I had fallen out of love with the sport a bit and became disenchanted with the sport, I was looking for ways to love it again. I’ve never not liked it; it’s kind of like a marriage. There are days where you don’t like each other, but you always love each other, and that’s how my last 16 months of my career have been.”
His first race is the first year of the season at Daytona. The 500 will have a full lineup and LaJoie will have some work to do to get the 01 car in the race.
LaJoie has not revealed what other races he will be running in 2025.