Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott are two drivers who have already made it to the ‘Greatest 75 Drivers of NASCAR’ list. But Spire Motorsports star Corey LaJoie believes that their caliber is such that they are already future Hall of Famers. Talking on a podcast recently, LaJoie discussed the spectrum of driver quality on a Cup Series grid and underlined how difficult it was to win against those like Larson and Elliott.
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Making a point about the competition with the top dogs from Hendrick Motorsports and company, he said, “Those guys are gonna be Hall of Famers and they’re active right now. When you’re competing against those guys with elite engineers and elite crew chiefs and endless budgets, it’s pretty hard to win a race.”
Counting the number of elite drivers from the current grid as 12, he mentioned those he considered to be bonafide Hall of Famers. He included Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, and Kevin Harvick alongside the HMS superstars.
LaJoie’s take was that a section of fans believed that just because a driver ran in the second half of the grid, it didn’t mean that they carried significantly lower skill than those who ran top. He mentioned the variables that affected the results of a race to back his opinion and criticized those in the fandom who believed that they could race and win against the mIdpack drivers who struggled against the elite ones.
Corey LaJoie comes down hard on those criticizing drivers from the couch
Addressing those who thought they were good enough to get into a car and beat NASCAR drivers at the tracks, LaJoie said, “I think that there’s a lot of short track guys that sit around on a couch on a Sunday afternoon being supercritical and think they could get in there and do it better. You ain’t doing it no better, bro. Just sit tight on the couch and watch me do my thing.”
Driving the #7 car for Spire Motorsports, Corey LaJoie made a significant improvement to his record in 2023.
In the 2022 season, he was one of those with the most DNFs having not finished 8 races. In the latest season, however, he made history by becoming only the 15th Cup Series driver in history to end a season with zero DNFs. In the upcoming season, LaJoie will be flanked by Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith.
With Spire Motorsports going all in financially to find their form, he will have a good chance at consistently running up along with those whom he considers elite.
