Corey LaJoie Laid Down 'Kids' College Fund' For Daytona 500 Chance
Corey LaJoie got the job done in Thursday night's Duel 2 at Daytona International Speedway as he scored an impressive sixth-place finish, which netted him a starting position in Sunday's 67th-annual Daytona 500.
It was sweet redemption for a driver, who has survived some massive shots to his ego as he was traded away from Spire Motorsports to Rick Ware Racing with seven races left in the 2024 season. While there was hope LaJoie could compete for RWR full-time in 2025, the team opted to lease one of its two Charters this season and instead reached an agreement with LaJoie for a part-time schedule for 2025.
After advancing into the Daytona 500 starting field, though, LaJoie revealed just how badly he wanted a chance to compete in the Daytona 500 in his post-race press conference.
"Come back down here, front Rick [Ware] the money in January to make sure nobody else got the car because I know his car is one of the more desirable, one of the open cars to drive and be on the hook for a couple of weeks, not knowing what was going to happen there," LaJoie said. "I was probably dumb enough to let my chips ride on the table and try to make this race on my own dime, but luckily for me, DuraMAX and Take 5 came in at the last minute and took me off the hook."
You read that correctly, LaJoie used his own money to reserve the Rick Ware Racing car for this year's Daytona 500 out of fear that another driver may snatch it up before he could find a sponsor to pony up to cover the costs.
"I wish I had a good answer for you, because that's what this place means, right? It's the Daytona 500," LaJoie said when pressed on why he would pay his own hard-earned money to compete in this race.
While LaJoie didn't divulge the exact total that he put down to reserve the No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for this race, he did at least lend clues as to how much he spent.
"It was all of my kids' college fund rolled into one race, right," LaJoie stated.
When asked to elaborate on how much money was in his kids' college fund, LaJoie said, "Four zeros, one comma."
For those keeping at score, that's an awful lot of pennies for a driver, whose patented catchphrase is stacking pennies.
Fortunately, for LaJoie, and his children, sponsorship was indeed found for his No. 15 Rick Ware Racing ride for this week at Daytona International Speedway in the form of DuraMAX and Take 5 Oil Change and as a result, his deposit was returned. Had it not been for that, an already stressful situation of attempting to lock himself into the Daytona 500 with no safety net paired with sinking his children's college fund into the effort would have potentially been the catalyst of hyperventilation for LaJoie.
With the Duel at Daytona now behind him, LaJoie is about as happy to secure the start for Rick Ware and his race team as he is about making into the race for himself.
"For us to put those guys in the show, it means a lot because they have a lot of people coming this weekend," LaJoie stated. "And the partners that continue to support me with how tough last year was for everybody and for everybody to continue to stick with me to go to this deal and do some part-time racing, whether it be Celsius or Schluter Systems or anybody else that's been along for the ride, it's been pretty cool to continue to build on that."
LaJoie has reached a fork in the road in his racing career, and this weekend's race could hold the road map for which way he'll turn. Despite his racing future potentially being on the line, LaJoie is just happy to have locked into the race.
"I'm not sure what the future holds quite yet," LaJoie admitted, "but I'm excited that the first box we set out to check was coming down here and making the Great American Race, and that's what we did."
Maybe LaJoie can go from stacking pennies to checking boxes this weekend at Daytona. And who knows, maybe he could pick up his first career win. Wouldn't that be something?
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.