12 Questions with Corey LaJoie (2018)

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The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Corey LaJoie of TriStar Motorsports. LaJoie finished 40th in the Daytona 500 after an engine failure.

1. How often do you have dreams about racing?

Not a whole lot. When you’re a little kid, you have a little more vivid dreams of trying to win the 500, and then you get here and you’re kind of fighting an uphill battle every week with a couple of places I’ve been. So your dreams start to be a little more realistic, and you dream of like maybe running 12th on a good day.

I dream about weird stuff, but for the most part I don’t have vivid racing dreams.

2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?

Oh yeah, you’ve gotta address it right up front. You can’t let it fester. It’s just like life: If you do it wrong, it just only gets worse, and tempers only get more bitter the longer you go and you don’t address it.

A big reason why people get into it is because they race each other hard week after week, and if you race that person week after week, that means you’re gonna be parked next to them, right? So that’s how it always happens: You get in a fight with somebody, and then you’re riding in the (driver) intros truck with them the next week. Something like that happens all the time.

So nip in the bud, grow a pair. If you didn’t mean to, just tell them, “I didn’t mean to.” I’ve had to do that a couple times, but you can’t let that grow because you’ll end up like a Matt Kenseth and Joey (Logano) situation, and that didn’t end up good for any one of them.

3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?

For the stage that I’m at in my career, you’re just trying to survive and scratch and claw and stay in the sport because you’re hoping for an opportunity to get in a well-funded car. But for now, you’re here, you’re digging, you’re scratching, you’re clawing, and when people from the other side of the garage acknowledge that they know how hard I’m working and they see me develop as a race car driver — even though the results may not show it every week — when somebody actually on that side notices and says, “Hey man, you’re doing a good job, keep it up,” it definitely makes the hard work worth it sometimes. Because then you know it’s not going unnoticed.                                

4. NASCAR comes to you and says, “Hey, we are bringing a celebrity to the race and we’re wondering if you have time to say hi.” Who is a celebrity you’d be really excited to host?

Probably Ryan Reynolds. That guy’s a stud. I think he’s funny. I think that’d be just a hilarious day of just walking around with that guy and showing him our sport and showing him everything that our lives are every week and kind of see what he thinks. I think that’d be my choice.

I mean, (wife) Blake Lively might come with him, so then you’ve got to think about who his plus-one is.

5. In an effort to show they are health-conscious, NASCAR offers the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for a month. Would you do it?

(Laughs) No, man! No. That No. 1 pit stall ain’t worth like a good pizza and a cheeseburger and some beer. No pit stall is worth that. I can’t do that.

6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I have picked a random race from your career and you have to guess where you finished. This is the K&N East series, 2012, the year you finished second in points, the September race at Loudon.

I finished second to (Kyle) Larson by like three inches.

Wow! You remembered that one right off the bat.

Right off the bat. That’s the one that still stings because I led, I don’t know if the race was 150 laps and I led…

You led 25 laps.

I led like the last 25, and on the last, late-race restart, I couldn’t get going on the short run and Larson rolled the top on me and I got back to him in (Turn) 3 and moved him when he crossed the line. He beat me by like three inches. I hadn’t won at Loudon up to that point, always ran good, but that one was too close to home.

So I brought up a bad memory.

No, it’s all good. I mean, obviously it kind of brings up back when people used to think I was a good race car driver. So that feels like a lifetime ago. But that was a fun race. Darrell (Wallace Jr.) finished third in that race.

Yeah, I have here that Larson won, Bubba finished third and Chase Elliott finished fifth, so it was a pretty stacked field.

Yeah, K&N was tough back then.

You won five races that season. You finished that season with five straight top-twos, and three of your five wins came in those final five races. So that was a pretty strong finish.

Yeah, and then we had a judgment call on a carburetor that cost us 25 points, and we lost the championship by six points.

Oh, is that what happened? I don’t even remember that. Dang. Was it the right call?

Depends on whose truck you’re sitting on. Not mine, I can assure you.

7. Who is the best rapper alive?

That’s a good question because I like rap music. I like all music. I’ll have like some MercyMe followed up by Tupac or totally out there. Let’s see my latest. (Opens iTunes.)

What’s on your phone here?

I like Rick Ross.

Rick Ross, the Boss?

Yeah, Rick Ross the Boss. Meek Mill is good. (Keeps scrolling through iTunes.) I’ve got a lot of Rick Ross in here. I like Gucci Mane, too. Yeah, so I like rap music. I like it all.

So you’re going with Rick Ross for your answer?

I’m gonna go with Rick Ross, the Boss.

Kyle Busch last week said Eminem, so we have one vote for Eminem.

(Laughs) He has to say that, because that’s what the big yellow thing is on the hood of his car.

8. Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?

Wow, what a question that is. I don’t know, it just depends whose face needs to get punched in certain situations. I mean, I pretty much like everybody.

Some people just have annoying faces though.

Now there’s people’s faces I don’t want to punch, I can tell you that. Like (Ryan) Newman. That guy’s neck is so solid, you punch his head, it’s like one of those little guys in martial arts — the little blow-up thing with the black base, and his head just bounces right back off your fist. So Newman would be a guy I would not want to mess with. He’s like cornbread-fed.

I feel like Newman would be one of those people in a superhero movie when they start attacking the guy and it has no effect on him whatsoever.

He’s like the rock guy (Thing) from the X-Men.

Yeah, he’s like that. Keeps coming.

So I would say Ryan Newman has the least punchable face.

9. NASCAR enlists three famous Americans to be involved with your team for one race as part of a publicity push: Taylor Swift, LeBron James and Tom Hanks. Choose one to be your crew chief, one to be your spotter and one to be your motorhome driver.

That’s easy. LeBron James will be the crew chief, he’s a great leader of men, he would get that ship rolling good. He probably doesn’t know how to take a tire off, but he can get them people working like in a synchrony. I don’t even know if that’s a word. Symphony, maybe?

Tom Hanks on the roof spotting because — what’s that movie he was in with the plane? (Sully) He’s a familiar voice, it’s kind of like a calming Tom Hanks voice up on the roof, so you don’t get fired up.

And then T-Swift will drive the bus, and I’ll let her sing karaoke all she wants.

You’d hang out for the weekend?

I’m engaged, so I can’t answer the question like that…

OK, well you can bring your fiancee. I’m sure she would want to hang out with her.

Yeah, for sure. So yeah, T-Swift driving the bus, Tom Hanks on the roof, LeBron James calling the shots. That’s a dream team.

10. What is the key to finding the best pre-race bathroom?

I’ve always said if you’re a fan, you find the closest port-o-potty to wherever (drivers) get off the trucks from driver intros. You can meet everybody from Danica to Dale Jr. to anybody else if you stand to the closest one off the driver intros truck. Usually there’s a line about six deep with all drivers (waiting to pee).

So that’s a little tip for the fans: If you want to get an autograph, don’t worry about waiting around all day by the pit area, because they’re not gonna sign it. Go to the port-o-potty, and preferably try to have them sign it before they use the bathroom, because there’s no sink in there.

11. NASCAR misses the highlight reel value brought by Carl Edwards’ backflips and decides a replacement is needed. How much money would they have to pay you to backflip off your car after your next win?

How much money? Does that include the medical bills they would have to pay for?

You would probably have to negotiate that into it.

You ask that question to (Daniel) Hemric, and he’s gonna tell you, “For free.” That’s his thing. But for me, I have a hard time doing a backflip on a trampoline, so I’d probably do it for $100,000. And I’d be close to sticking it.

So you wouldn’t get hurt that bad?

No. But I would make sure to park in the grass. I would do it in the grass, for sure. But yeah, 100 grand, I’ll do it.

12. Each week, I ask a question given to me from the last interview. Last week, I interviewed Kyle Busch. His question was: With life on the road, how do you balance the travel with each location, whether you go out, you stay in a motorhome — you have a motorhome?

No.

OK, so a hotel. How do you decide if you’re just gonna chill, or go do something fun in that city — what goes in the decision?

Since I stay away from the racetrack, I can see the surroundings when I leave and kind of pick different restaurants on the way back. You’ve got your one or two restaurants you want to hit up in every city you go to. I go to Phoenix, I’ll hike up Camelback (Mountain). Or there’s a really good steakhouse in Atlanta which I go to, little things like that.

But you try to keep it routine. You want to go to bed fairly early, maybe see some friends who don’t live at home and live somewhere else and meet up with them.

I like to stay at hotels. For one, it doesn’t cost me anything — I just show up and get in the rental car and go to the hotel. But everywhere has its little perks. There’s some places like Pocono where there’s nothing really to do there, so everywhere has its pluses and minuses.

So you don’t have to worry about race traffic too much in the morning? You get there early enough?

Yeah, so I leave fairly early. That is a nightmare of mine, waking up in a cold sweat and waking up late on a race day like, “Oh.” Then you’re like, “It’s 3:30 in the morning, let’s go back to sleep.”

There’s your racing dream.

Yeah, that’s one of the dreams I’ve always had, waking up and you’re late to practice, you’re late to qualifying or something, and you wake up and you’re like, “Oh. Phew. Good thing.”

I don’t know who the next interview is going to be with, but do you have a question I can ask another driver for next time?

You should do Bubba, and then you should ask him how much gas money he gave me for driving him to school for three years.

What’s the story there?

We went to the same high school. He was a year and a half younger than me, so I drove him, picked him up. I lived like five minutes away from school, so I had to drive past the school like 10 minutes, turn around and come back. So it was an extra 20 minutes twice in my day, right?

I drove him to school for two and a half years. And he gave me $20 the entire time!

You ask him that question, he’ll bust out laughing. So ask him how much gas money he gave me for wasting valuable time to come pick his ass up and bring him to school. I love Bubba, but he should have given me more gas money.

So he still owes you, with interest.

Yes. He can afford it now, I’m sure.