Corey LaJoie‘s ride with Go Fas Racing is safe. On Tuesday, he announced on his Sunday Money podcast that he would remain with the team for the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season.
“I’m gonna be back in the #32 car at Go Fas Racing next year,” LaJoie began on the podcast. “I don’t know if everybody was expecting that because it took a little while to get done longer than both sides would probably like, and I’m ultimately super excited to go back.”
LaJoie joined GFR in 2019, his first full-time Cup season. Driving the #32 Ford Mustang, he scored his first career top-ten finishes with a sixth and seventh at the second Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway weekends, respectively. He ended the season twenty-ninth in points. In the podcast, LaJoie added he also considered a ride with Front Row Motorsports, whose #38 driver David Ragan retired after 2019, before electing to return to GFR.
“Mason [St. Hilaire] and I are excited to bring Corey back and continue Go Fas Racing’s growth with 2019 being our best year ever,” team owner Archie St. Hilaire said in a team release after the podcast. “The Stewart-Haas Racing alliance should allow us to continue that progress throughout the 2020 season with all the great employees and marketing partners this team has! We couldn’t be more excited for the 2020 season to begin.”
For 2020, GFR has formed an alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing. As part of the partnership, SHR will provide equipment like chassis and technical information.
LaJoie’s contract is a one-year extension, which he noted was a staple of St. Hilaire.
“Archie likes doing one-year deals, which I think is okay because things can change periodically,” he noted. “I think this is a crazy, crazy time in the sport with people retiring or moving around. The best I can figure, there’s probably only legitimately seven or eight cars that have their drivers committed for 2021. Everybody else is up in the air, so hopefully I can position myself the following year to be in something really good. But I’m concentrated fully on 2020 with Go Fas and this Stewart-Haas alliance.“
Crew chief Randy Cox, who has worked with the team since 2018 and was with LaJoie at BK Racing prior, will not return to his role in 2020. LaJoie speculated on Sunday Monday that SHR’s NASCAR Xfinity Series team will provide him with Cox’s successor.
“[..] He’s been doing the grind for six, seven years now,” LaJoie added. “He was a tyre changer on the Bud #8 car with Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., so he’s been around and he’s been in Victory Lane a lot of times. The grind just kind of got to him, his kids are getting older, you just want to spend a little time.
“Wish all the best to him. He’s been a good friend of mine. He was with me my first year at BK until he stopped getting paid around the same time I stopped getting paid—but he had the opportunity to quit, I didn’t—so he left, went to Go Fas for a couple of years, and we got to work again.”
