Corey LaJoie won't return to Spire Motorsports for 2025 season

A major domino in NASCAR free agency has fallen.

Veteran driver Corey LaJoie will not return to Spire Motorsports and the No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro in 2025, per Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic.

The move comes after it was previously thought that LaJoie would stay with the team through 2025, as veteran crew chief Rodney Childers was set to join the No. 7 team. However, Spire's plans have changed, and with LaJoie's performance decreasing significantly in 2024, the team decided it was time to move on.

LaJoie joined Spire in 2021, and while his first two seasons with the team weren't anything to write home about, he had his moments. At Atlanta in July of 2022, he nearly won his first NASCAR race before a block by Chase Elliott sent him into the outside wall.

2023 saw LaJoie and Spire take major strides, as the driver notched the best points finish of his career - 25th - and had the highest average finish of his career as well at 20.8.

This year has been rough for LaJoie, however, as he currently trails rookie teammate Carson Hocevar by 59 points, and with another rookie teammate in Zane Smith turning up the wick, LaJoie's consistently poor performance was becoming more noticeable.

An incident at Pocono with Kyle Busch sparked outrage after LaJoie fervently denied any wrongdoing, and it seemed that the veteran driver's lovable underdog façade was starting to wear off. A driver can only be an underdog for so long before the polish starts dim, and with Spire's improvement being diminished by LaJoie's disappointing 2024 season, the team saw fit to pull the plug on their most tenured driver.