Corey Lajoie's NASCAR hourglass may be running out of sand

Since joining Spire Motorsports in 2021, Corey Lajoie has easily been the team's top driver. However, one NASCAR Cup Series rookie may be threatening Lajoie's job security — and his NASCAR future as a whole.

In 2023, Lajoie showed immense improvement, finishing 25th in points — up from 31st in 2022 — and easily dwarfing the 32nd-place effort of teammate Ty Dillon.

2024 was primed to be the 32-year-old's breakout season in the NASCAR Cup Series. It's been anything but.

Through the first 15 races of the 2024 season, Lajoie only has one top-10 — a fourth-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 — and sits 32nd in points , third-worst of all drivers who have started every race this season.

In comparison, his rookie teammate at Spire, Carson Hocevar, has two top-10 finishes — neither of which came on drafting tracks — and sits 21st in the rankings, 109 points outside of the playoffs. Hocevar's average finish also easily trumps that of Lajoie, being 3.6 spots higher.

For years, Lajoie was seen as a driver who just needed a shot in good equipment to show everyone what he was capable of. When Lajoie ultimately did get his chance, driving the No. 9 for Hendrick Motorsports at Gateway in 2023, he shrunk under the bright lights, finishing 21st and even being outrun by Hocevar — who was making his Cup Series debut in Lajoie's usual No. 7 car — before a brake failure ended Hocevar's day.

As a journeyman driver who has stayed loyal to Spire Motorsports, it seems appropriate that Spire would grant Lajoie a longer leash than most. However, if Lajoie continues to regress, the team may be forced to part ways with the driver who helped build their organization from a back-marker to a respectable mid-pack contender — on the basis of said driver relegating the team's flagship car back into a back-marker.

While Lajoie shouldn't have to worry about his future after this season, a poor effort in the remaining 21 races of 2024 combined with more stronger efforts from Hocevar could call his long-term job security into question. At 32 years old, Lajoie isn't getting any younger, and with Hocevar being just 21, he seems like the perfect fit to further grow the once-fledgling Spire team.

Hocevar's ceiling has already proved to be much higher than Lajoie's, and if things don't get better in 2025, Lajoie may find himself both unemployed and with nowhere to go.

After all, a good track record matters in NASCAR — and no matter how nice of a guy you are, nine top-10 finishes and zero wins in more than 250 starts isn't likely to get you hired.