Corey LaJoie turned in the best finish of his NASCAR Cup Series career on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
LaJoie brought the Spire Motorsports No. 7 Chevrolet home in fourth position. It was his second career top-five effort, besting his fifth-place run in last March’s race at the 1.54-mile superspeedway.
It was the sixth top-10 finish of the third-generation racer’s Cup Series career.
“It feels great. It’s like this taboo, second sucks. Fourth is great. Fourth is great for our Celsius Camaro and our small team. Just a great points day,” said LaJoie, who has finished in the top 20 in four of the five races this season. “We started off the year, West Coast swing, really solid. To come back here, a bit of a crapshoot. To get another career best here…I don’t expect to show up and instantly win a race.
“You have to keep putting yourself in these positions, like Joey. That is why he wins all the time, because he’s up front all the time,” LaJoie continued. “As I get myself some more confidence, race around these guys, these guys see me up there racing with them, our day is going to come.”
• Christopher Bell finished third on Sunday, charting his fourth top-10 finish in five races this season aboard the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota.
Still, Bell was disappointed with his decision-making during the closing laps.
“Got a good finish out of it and I’m happy with that. I don’t know, I had the position the 22 (Joey Logano) had and I decided to bail on it and go to the top,” Bell explained. “To come so close is disappointing, but very happy with a third-place result. We’ll go onto the next one.”
Tyler Reddick (45) goes three-wide with Joey Logano (22) and Austin Cindric at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (HHP/Andrew Coppley)
• Ty Gibbs raced from 35th to finish ninth Sunday at Atlanta.
“I feel like from where we started to where we finished, we made really good progression,” said the rookie Joe Gibbs Racing driver. “The team, my 54 group never gave up on me and we had great stops all day. We had a very fast Monster Energy Toyota Camry TRD, just ran out of laps there. Probably could have worked our way up a little bit and been more aggressive, but it just comes with experience, but we’re plate racing and that’s just part of it and just learning and we’ll move on and go to the next race.”
• Both Legacy Motor Club entries enjoyed top-15 finishes at Atlanta. Erik Jones came home eighth in the No. 43 Chevrolet, while Noah Gragson was 12th in the No. 42 machine.
“Happy to get a top-10 for the No. 43 Allegiant Chevy,” said Jones. “We needed that. We just needed a good finish. We haven’t had one this year, so it was nice to do that. I hope we keep it rolling. We just kind of squeaked that one out there at the end with some stuff working out on the last two laps for us. But happy with that; proud of that. Glad we can hopefully get some momentum going and keep rolling.”
• Ryan Blaney battled back from multiple laps down after being assessed a speeding penalty during green-flag pit stops. Blaney brought his Team Penske Ford home in seventh.
• There were 20 lead changes among 13 drivers in Sunday’s 260-lap race, with winner Joey Logano leading five times for 140 laps. There were also fie yellow flags that ate up 34 laps.
• Logano’s victory on Sunday was the 32nd Cup Series triumph for the two-time series champion and his first at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Keyword: Cup Series Notes: Career-Best Finish For LaJoie