It didn’t necessarily look the part on Friday night during qualifying for the Snowball Derby, but Corey LaJoie believes this is the fastest Super Late Model he has ever built.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular never strays far from his short track roots and the annual trek to Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola is the highlight of his season. The 26-year-old struggled in his first full-time Cup season with BK Racing, but it’s widely known the cars were substandard at best.
But still, the second-generation driver knows this weekend is an opportunity to remind the industry why he was once regarded as a top prospect. This will be the fourth Snowball Derby for LaJoie who has always brought good, but not great cars, with a best finish of 13th in 2014.
“I haven’t put a full weekend together here yet,” Lajoie told Short Track Scene. “Something has either broke or I shot myself in the foot.”
But after a Cup season that only netted a 30th place finish, LaJoie wants to end the year with a more impactful parting shot.
“Obviously, it was a confidence-draining year in my first full Cup year driving something that isn’t capable of running where you expect to be,” LaJoie said. “So to be able to come here and run with some of those same guys and hold my own, it’s great, because the best in the sport are here.
“Hopefully, we can get the result I feel like we deserve, which is getting that Tom Dawson Trophy.”
Lajoie built this car from the ground up. It has his fingerprints and DNA. It reflects the blue-collar everyman racer that the LaJoies are known to be. He was extremely pleased with the entry before qualifying, but only posted the 26th best lap.
A 16.624 was fast enough to get him into the show, but also made him want to tear the car apart to figure out what went wrong.
“300 laps is a long time,” he said. “Christian (Eckes) didn’t have the fastest car all weekend last year. He qulifed 18th or whatever, I don’t know. It doesn’t need to have a ton of speed. Starting up front would make you feel better, so now we need to focus on happy hour stuff.
“It’s easy to make a car drive good, but it’s harder to find speed, and we have good speed this weekend. I still think we’re a couple of adjustments from being dang good.”
Read more Short Track Scene:
- Ty Majeski, Roush pit crew prepared for Snowball Derby
- Casey Roderick racing for Ronnie Sanders’ legacy
- Why a misplaced transponder didn’t cost Matt McCall the win at SNMP
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