Spire Motorsports announced a two-driver lineup of Corey LaJoie and Ty Dillon for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season.
LaJoie, 31, will return for his third consecutive season with the team.
He is ranked 31st in the points standings and finished a career-best fifth in the March 20 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
He also led a career-best 19 laps in his No. 7 Chevrolet during the July 10 race at Atlanta before crashing in a battle with Chase Elliott for the victory on the final restart.
This will be the fifth consecutive season in NASCAR’s premier series for LaJoie, who has five top 10s in 197 career Cup starts.
Ryan Sparks will remain the crew chief for LaJoie and also has been promoted to the team’s director of competition.
Sparks and LaJoie joined Spire as a duo after being paired at GoFas Racing in 2020.
We would like to welcome @tydillon to team #SpireMotorsports for the 2023 season as the full-time driver of the #77!
Welcome to the team Ty; we are very happy to have you here alongside @CoreyLaJoie in the #7 and look forward to all that we will accomplish together next season. pic.twitter.com/QURLYL2htg , Spire Motorsports (@SpireMotorsport) October 18, 2022 “With another year under our belts and a notebook on the new car, I know we can have a solid season and get that first win,” LaJoie said in a release. “It’s cool my buddy Ty is joining us as well.
It will be nice to have a full-time teammate in the No. 77.” Dillon, 30, will join Spire Motorsports after spending the 2022 season in the No. 42 Chevrolet of Petty GMS Racing.
He is ranked 29th in the points standings with a season-best finish of 10th in the Bristol Motor Speedway dirt race.
The 2023 season will be Dillon’s sixth full time on the Cup circuit.
He ran for Germain Racing from 2017-20 with a career-best finish of third in the Oct. 4, 2020 race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Kevin Bellicourt, who has been the crew chief for Spire’s No. 77 the past two seasons , will be Dillon’s crew chief.
In 199 Cup starts, Dillon has two top fives and seven top 10s.
He has finished a career-best 24th in the points twice (2017, ’19).
Dillon also has three victories in the Camping World Truck Series (where he finished second in the 2013 standings).
He won the July 26, 2014 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as a rookie in the Xfinity Series, where he finished in the top five of the standings in three consecutive seasons. “I’m thankful for this opportunity, a new beginning with a very hungry team that is excited for the future,” Dillon said in a release. “Spire Motorsports has been growing year after year when you look at the way that Corey and the No. 7 team has developed to be competitive.
The organization is heading in the right direction and I’m excited to be a part of bringing the No. 77 up to where Corey has been running.
Hopefully we raise the whole level of competition together.” Spire Motorsports will have two full-time drivers for the first time in its history.
The team started with the 2019 Cup Series season with eight drivers splitting time in the No. 77 Chevrolet.
Justin Haley delivered the team its first victory in a rain-shortened race July 7, 2019 at Daytona International Speedway.
LaJoie became its first full-time driver last season, and the team expanded to a second full-time car in 2022 that has been shared by four drivers. “There’s little doubt that we raised some eyebrows when we entered the sport as race team owners,” Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson said in a release. “We knew that we needed to learn how to crawl before we attempted to walk and eventually run.
We’ve been quite fortunate to build a strong foundation for Spire Motorsports over the past several years.
That’s a testament to the people of Spire Motorsports, and Corey LaJoie, Ryan Sparks and Kevin Bellicourt have been the bedrock of this organization. “The next step in our progression is to add an equally capable full-time driver for the No. 77 team and we’ve found just that individual in Ty Dillon.
Clearly, the path that (fellow Spire Motorsports co-owner T.J.
Puchyr) and I have taken to be here today has been atypical.
We have great respect for our contemporaries in the sport, and we are humbled to be among them.
Collectively, we’ve been fortunate to serve a lot of functions and roles in racing over the past 20 years. That allows us to have a great appreciation and perspective of what it takes to be successful in this super-competitive environment.
We’re very proud of what every member of the organization has helped us build.” The final 60 laps Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway saw a big swing of fortune for William Byron , Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin that could impact which of them will race for a championship in two weeks.
Byron holds the final transfer spot heading into next week’s Round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway , which will set the field for the championship race Nov. 6 at Phoenix Raceway.
He has a five-point lead on Hamlin.
Blaney is next, 18 points behind Bryon.
Hamlin was one of only two playoff drivers to finish in the top 10, placing seventh, while Byron salvaged his day by finishing 12th and Blaney was 17th.
Byron’s race turned during a pit stop at Lap 206 of the 267-lap event.
He had fallen from fifth to 13th in the 30 laps before that stop because of an ill-handling car. “We just had one bad run,” Byron said. “We restarted second and kind of maintained in second for maybe a couple of laps, and then the car fell off and disappeared.
That one run was just really weird, so we lost a lot of track position.” Byron was the first car to pit during that green-flag cycle in hopes of gaining track position by having fresher tires before the rest of the field.
Crew chief Rudy Fugle’s plan went away when Byron exited his stall before the left front wheel was tight.
Byron was called on the radio and had only gone a few feet away before stopping and backing into his pit stall.
The result was a 22.6-second pit stop for a crew that had four of its five other pit stops in the 10-second range.
That stop left Byron a lap down.
A caution a few laps later allowed him to get his lap back.
Byron struggled to crack the top 15 until the final laps.
He gained four spots in the final 11 laps to finish 12th. “We’ve got to figure out those short runs,” Byron told his team on the radio after the race. “That was really good balance there at the end.
We just have to have that more often.” Blaney’s race turned a few laps after Byron’s pit stop.
Blaney brought out the caution on Lap 212 when he spun on the access road after exiting pit road during his green-flag stop. “I cannot believe I just did that,” Blaney radioed his crew.
He was third before he pitted but dropped to 16th after the incident.
He struggled with track position, losing a spot before the finish.
Falling from third to 17th cost him 14 points , most of his deficit from the cutline. “Downshifted like a complete moron,” Blaney told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon on what caused his spin. “It’s just disappointing, mainly in myself.
The last two weeks I have not done a good job executing at all , from wrecking last week to making a bonehead move like that this week.
The 12 group doesn’t deserve that.
I’m just disappointed in myself and can’t have that.
Pretty unacceptable. “Just try to go win Martinsville, that’s all we can do.
We’re going to try to run up front and have a good day … hopefully the driver doesn’t cost us anything.” Hamlin was told he was four points ahead of Byron for the final transfer spot with less than 20 laps to go.
Hamlin restarted second to eventual winner Kyle Larson but fell back to fifth within 10 laps and got into the wall in the final laps, costing him two more positions.
The points lost by Hamlin, along with the points gained by Byron’s late charge, allowed Byron to take the final transfer spot from Hamlin. “We had some good stops, pit crew did a great job the second half of the race,” Hamlin told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “I was able to get a good restart to get track position, taking the lead, but I can’t get my car to go.
I can’t get it to turn.
We are just too slow in the short run.
Something we’ve got to really work on for sure.
At Vegas, it hurt us as well. “We’ll just continue to work on it.
I’ll try to work on my technique and try to do anything I can to try to get some more speed out of it.
We weren’t fast enough to really compete with those guys.
Even when we got the lead, we were kind of just a sitting duck because I couldn’t go anywhere.” What drivers said during and after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Round of 8 playoff race at Homestead-MIamiSpeedway, where Kyle Larson won for the first time : Kyle Larson , winner : “Yeah, definitely the best run we’ve had all year long.
We’ve been capable of it I feel like many weekends, we just haven’t quite put it all together. (Crew chief) Cliff (Daniels) gave a great speech this morning and got us all ready to go and focused and did my best to keep it out of the wall.
I got in the wall a few times but I could still make speed doing that. Amazing race car.
I knew that that last run was going to be short enough where I was going to be in some sort of trouble there, but thankfully AJ and Ross were racing hard behind me. “But yeah, happy for our team, and we get to go race for an owner’s title in Phoenix in a couple weeks.
We’re still technically not out of it.
I can’t win the championship, but it means more to me to win it as a team.
We’re going to go to Phoenix and try to get another championship. (On the contact with Martin Truex Jr. in the pits) “Yeah, so I was just going behind him, and he had a hard left and was hard on the brakes at the same time, and I ran right in the back of him.
My team said he was late turning into his stall, but I don’t know.
If it was my fault, I’m sorry.
I don’t think it was. But it’s hard to see down this pit road.
I don’t know if fans and people realize, when you’ve got debris all over your windshield, the sun is shining straight in your face, it’s hard to see your stall.
So hate that that happened.
He was definitely the one I was going to have to beat.
He was really good that last long run, too. “What a fun day.
I’ve always wanted to race here during the day at Homestead where we could rip the wall.
Finally have a car tough enough for me to be able to run the wall and finish the race.
A lot of fun today.
Hope you fans enjoyed the ass-kicking there, and hope we can do it again in a couple of weeks.” Ross Chastain , Finished second : “Not the way you would have scripted it.
I feel like we had a top-three or four car all day, all weekend, and a little too tight in qualifying, and come behind that with a driver that chose the complete wrong lane in 3 and 4, against everything I’ve ever trained for and prepared for.
Qualified 20th, and it took us all day long. We need to get the car turning better from qualifying into the race.
We were too tight.
Phil Surgen and his whole team got it turning better, and pit stops were incredible again. Our guys were just , they’re just rock stars on pit road, and I’m so glad to go to battle with them. “At the end of the day, I know we didn’t score a ton of stage points.
We put ourselves in position at the end, and just keep executing.
I almost spun off Turn 2 in front of Daniel, and I had my arms all crossed up and I just took a deep breath down the back, and thought, what can I control here?
I can control not spinning out, so let’s go a little slower next time, and had a shot at it.” (On feeling comfort heading to Martinsville) “I don’t know What’s it supposed to feel like?
I’ve never been here.
For Trackhouse, we’re learning all this together; we’re experiencing this together. “We’ve got a lot of knowledge in our shop and I’ll lean on a lot of teammates, both in the GM camp and inside our shop of how to approach it, but I’m a racer.
We’re just going to race.
Go practice as well as we can; we’ll go qualify as best we can.
And I’m late all the time, so a grandfather clock might do me a little good for the rest of my life. (To race for a championship is) just a life goal, a career accomplishment.
Just to make it to the Cup Series, be here competing with my heroes.
I train with Kyle, and he was better than us today.
But he ran into the 19, knocked his diffuser flap down and he didn’t have quite as much grip, and we had a shot at it. “I feel like that no matter what, this season is going to be a success, but in the moments where I hit the wall at the Roval and I realized this could all be gone and we could not transfer, it hurts, and I don’t want that.
I’m a racer, and I want the next thing.
I feel confident in our group and what we’ll take to Martinsville.
We ran fifth there in the spring.
We just continue to arrive on the scene of the Cup Series, and I wouldn’t want to be doing it with anybody else.” AJ Allmendinger , Finished third : “The short runs (felt really good).
It was really hooked up.
We still have to work on our long-run package in general.
That’s something that’s kind of been weak for us at Kaulig Racing.
We got that caution with 18 to go, I was like we’ve got a shot at this, and we lost a couple of spots on pit road but restarted eighth.
Ross and I had a fun battle.
I think I needed about an 11-lap run to catch Kyle.
But overall just proud of everyone at Kaulig Racing to get the Chevy in the top five and just have another solid day. “We know how it goes in the offseason.
A lot of stuff changes.
Everybody works on the cars.
It’s all about trying to build a notebook and get ready for next year.
This is just giving us confidence.
This is part of the reason why I made the decision to go full time Cup because I felt like the group that we have on the Cup side can be really good.
We have a lot of work to do, but it can be really good, and I want to be a part of that.” Austin Dillon , Finished fourth : “It’s one of our best race cars of the year for sure.
We started 32 nd .
I knew we had a good long run car, and it showed.
We were able to drive up through there.
I had a blast today.
Homestead is so much fun.
These cars were fun to race here today.
So close there.
Really felt like we could catch those next three cars.
Just weren’t as good as we needed to be at the end, but we’re in the fight, and that was a lot of fun.
The pit crew rebounded and had a good final stop.” Brad Keselowski , Finished fifth : “We were solid all day.
Great stops and the car was really solid.
We weren’t in a spot to dominate the race but we were in a spot to run up front all day and that is what we did.
We are starting to gel and click as a team.
It is exciting for RFK, and I am really happy for Violet Defense and everybody on the team.
We are pushing and getting better.
It was a solid day all day.
I am really looking forward to Martinsville.
We had a great test there just like we did here at Homestead.
I really want to get a win before this year is over.
If we keep building momentum like this I think we can do that. (Are you improving?) 100 percent.
It just can’t come fast enough.
We want it bad.” Martin Truex Jr. , Finished sixth : “Yeah, it was definitely a little bit of both of that.
It’s really hard to see through these windshields right now with the sun like that and all the stuff covering it.
I did see my box late for sure, so I slowed down before I turned out of the way of the 5 there.
Obviously partly on me.
I didn’t expect to get turned around.
I’m glad nobody got hurt there.
But overall it’s just disappointing.
To have a good day going like that and have a shot at winning and couldn’t close the deal.
I hate it for my team.
It’s been one of those years.” Denny Hamlin , Finished seventh : “We had some good stops.
The pit crew did a great job the second half of the race.
I was able to get a good restart to get the track position by taking the lead, but I just can’t get my car to go.
I can’t get it to turn.
We’re just too slow on the short runs.
Something we’ve really got to work on for sure.
Vegas, it hurt us as well.
We’ll just continue to work on it, and I’ll try to work on my technique and try to do anything I can to try to get some more speed out of it.
We weren’t fast enough to really compete with those guys even when we got the lead.
We were just a sitting duck because I couldn’t go anywhere.
It’s really tough to keep it up there all day, especially with the shadow into Turn 1.
I had my fair share of times in the wall today.
Luckily, the car stayed in one piece.
I nearly crashed into (Turn) 1.
That was exciting and just kept going.” (On Martinsville) “We’ve got to go get stage points.
We can’t be outside the top 10 for the first two stages for sure.
That’s the only thing that has really kind of hurt us.
Not having a lot of playoff points, we always have to dig ourselves out of a hole every time a round starts.
We just have to go there and get it done and perform well.
I think we can.
We have to qualify well and execute.” Christopher Bell , Finished 11th : “I’m fine.
I’m disappointed with our performance today, but at least that is in our hands.
Last week, I was emotional about it because it was out of our hands, and we were performing well.
Today, it was in our hands, and we just didn’t step up to the bat and do what we needed to do.
That was disappointing, but we will move to Martinsville.
We ran well in the spring.
I definitely feel better about winning there than I did at the Charlotte road course.” William Byron , Finished 12th : “We just had one bad run.
We restarted second and kind of maintained in second for maybe a couple of laps, and then the car fell off and disappeared.
That one run was just really weird, so we lost a lot of track position.
And then we had the deal on pit road, but everybody kept focused and tried to get as many spots as we could.
Twelfth is how we netted out after all of that, but I’m proud of the effort of the No. 24 Camaro ZL1 team.
We have some things to work on for short runs to just get the balance right.
Later in these races, it seems like that’s what it kind of comes down to more and we just struggled a little bit.
Just have to work on that; but overall, really happy with the rebound and we’re in a decent spot, for sure.” Chase Elliott , Finished 14th : “We were playing defense all day, but we were doing a pretty good job of it and staying inside the top-five there, so that was great.
But that’s what happens when you’re playing defense, and you have something like that happen to you.
You just get stuck.
The other guys that got buried; they drove right back to the front.
That’s just the difference.
I think if we execute next weekend, we’ll be fine.” Ryan Blaney , Finished 17th : (What happened on the spin exiting the pits?) “Downshifted like a complete moron.
It’s just disappointing, mainly to myself the last two weeks, I’ve not done a good job executing at all from wrecking last week and a bonehead move like that this week.
The 12 group doesn’t deserve that.
I’m disappointed in myself and can’t have that.
It’s pretty unacceptable.
Just go try to win Martinsville.
That’s all we can do.
Go try to run up front and have a good day, and that’s all we can ask for, just try to stay in the game and hopefully the driver doesn’t cost us anything.” Joey Logano , Finished 18th : “We had a good car.
It was a bit of a wasted car, unfortunately.
We had a really fast Mustang.
Probably not good enough to beat (Kyle Larson) but good enough for second or third.
We just lost too much track position anytime the caution came out or we went to pit road.
We just kept losing spot after spot after spot and couldn’t settle into the top five like we needed to.
It was a fast car and that is important.
We just need to get a little faster on pit road.
We have momentum.
We had a really fast race car.
We need a good day on pit road next week.
That will be really important for us and hopefully, we can do that.” Ty Dillon , Finished 26th : “We didn’t really have the speed we needed all day with our Sunseeker Resorts Camaro.
In the first 15 or 20 laps, we just got so far behind and wasn’t really able to recover.
It was definitely a struggle all day, and we lost some positions with the spin on the last lap too.
Hopefully, we will get better for the last two races.” Erik Jones , Finished 30th : “Today just wasn’t our day.
I thought we found some things at the test that would help us, but we struggled all race with the handling.
We’ve got some work to do for sure before we come back here next year.
You’ll have weeks like this, especially as we continue to learn this car.
Glad to have this one behind us and move on to next week at Martinsville.” Tyler Reddick , Finished 35th : “We started off our day running well.
Stage 1 was really strong for our team.
We ran up front, but our Chevy was just a little too free.
From there, it was pretty tough.
The balance of our Chevrolet was really tight, and we couldn’t free it up enough and that was frustrating.
We crashed with just a few laps left and that ended our day a little early.
Tough end, but this team will rebound and hopefully have a better result at Martinsville Speedway.” Chase Briscoe , Finished 36th : “The driver just made a mistake.
I was really, really loose that run.
We were really tight every other run.
That green-flag run we tried to get really free on the other side of it and just started taking really hard.
I was hanging on with everything I had.
It felt like I was on ice.
Honestly, I wasn’t even running hard.
I was trying to just get to the caution.
We kept getting freer.
I got sideways and had the wheel all the way to the right and ended up head-on into the wall.
It is really frustrating to have it be something of my own doing.
I am better than to be crashing by myself.
It is really unfortunate.
It makes our job easier next week I guess.
We don’t have to worry about points.
We gotta go to Martinsville and win.” Kyle Larson led 199 of 267 laps to earn his third Cup win of the season Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Larson is not eligible for the driver championship, so his victory means the final three spots for the title race will be determined next weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
Ross Chastain finished second Sunday and was followed by AJ Allmendinger , Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski .
The only playoff-eligible drivers to finish in the top 10 were Chastain (second) and Denny Hamlin (seventh).
Among the other playoff drivers: Christopher Bell placed 11th, William Byron was 12th, Chase Elliott was 14th, Ryan Blaney was 17th, Joey Logano was 18th and Chase Briscoe finished last.
Briscoe damaged his car after hitting the wall.
He will be in a must-win situation at Martinsville to make the championship race.
In the playoff standings, Chastain (19 points above the cutline), Elliott (+11) and Byron (+5) are each in a transfer spot heading into the final race before the title field is set.
Those below the cutline are: Hamlin (5 points below the cutline), Blaney (-18), Bell (-33) and Briscoe (-44).
Kyle Larson sprinted away from the rest of the field on the final restart and won Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Larson entered the race with a history of zero Cup wins at Homestead.
His best previous finish was a second in 2016, but he had scored four top-five runs in the past six races at the track.
With Larson, a non-playoff driver, winning the race, three spots remain open in the Championship Four for the Phoenix Raceway season finale.
Joey Logano locked in the first spot by winning last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
After Sunday’s race, the three drivers above the cutline are Ross Chastain , Chase Elliott and William Byron .
Below the cutline are Denny Hamlin , Ryan Blaney , Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe .
Only two playoff drivers , Chastain and Hamlin , finished in the top 10 Sunday.
The race took an odd turn with 23 laps remaining after Tyler Reddick prompted the day’s fifth caution period by spinning out.
Leader Martin Truex Jr. was bumped from behind by second-place Kyle Larson as they both rolled along pit road toward their individual pits.
Truex slid backward into his pit stall, sending team members scrambling.
That sequence of events dropped Truex to 19th place and continued his season of frustration.
Larson was side-by-side with Hamlin for the ensuing restart.
He won relatively easily as several drivers jousted for position behind him.
Truex said he and Larson were both to blame for the pit-road accident. “It was really hard to see with the sun like that and all the stuff covering it (windshield),” Truex said. “I did see my box late for sure.
Obviously, part of that was on me.
I didn’t expect to get turned around.
I’m glad nobody got hurt there.” Larson, who was running down Truex when the caution flew, said Truex hit the brakes suddenly. “I was just going behind him, and he did a left and was hard on the brakes at the same time,” Larson said. “I ran right in the back of him.
My team said he was late turning into his stall.
If it was my fault, I’m sorry, but I don’t think it was.
He was definitely the one I was going to have to beat.” Finishing behind Larson, who led 199 laps, were Chastain, AJ Allmendinger , Austin Dillon and Brad Keselowski .
Truex rallied to finish sixth.
Larson’s victory came a week after he and Bubba Wallace engaged in on-track and off-track incidents at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Wallace was suspended one race by NASCAR for crashing Larson on track.
Just @DoorDash ‘d some Humble Pie for lunch.
Ready to sit back and help @23XIRacing get it done today. 👊🏾 pic.twitter.com/5vYqFVTJkO , Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) October 23, 2022 Chastain said his Trackhouse Racing team will push on to Martinsville next week and aim at a win. “We’ve got a lot of knowledge in our shop, and I’ll lean on a lot of teammates, both in the GM camp and inside our shop of how to approach it, but I’m a racer,” he said. “We’re just going to race.
Go practice as well as we can; we’ll go qualify as best we can.
And I’m late all the time, so a grandfather clock (one of the Martinsville winner’s awards) might do me a little good for the rest of my life.” Blaney, among the drivers searching for a spot in the final four, caused a caution in the final stage when he lost control of his car on the pit access road.
Briscoe ran into major trouble four laps from the end of Stage 2 when he slammed the outside wall, causing right-side damage to his car.
Briscoe had run poorly most of the race.
He likely will need a win at Martinsville next week to make the final four.
With 85 laps to go, Hamlin made light contact with the outside wall while running in the top 10.
Pole winner Byron led the first 26 laps but fell off the frontrunning pace in the final stage.
He finished 12th.
Larson led the last 43 laps of the first stage to win it and remained strong in the next stage to win it easily.
The race’s first caution flag flew on Lap 31 when John Hunter Nemechek , substituting for Wallace, spun off Turn 2 after hitting the outside wall.
Stage 1 winner: Kyle Larson Stage 2 winner: Kyle Larson Who had a good race: Kyle Larson scored his 19th career victory and became the fourth driver to win at least three races this year.
He called Sunday’s run his best of the year. … Ross Chastain finished second for the second straight week. … AJ Allmendinger was third and has finished in the top 10 in his last six Cup starts. … Austin Dillon scored his fifth top-five finish of the year, a personal record. … Brad Keselowski’s fifth-place finish was his best of the season.
Who had a bad race: Chase Briscoe bounced off the wall, damaging the right side of his car and finishing last, severely damaging his hopes of advancing to the Championship Four. … Team Penske drivers Ryan Blaney (17th) and Joey Logano (18th) were mostly absent from the front.
Logano already has a spot in the championship competition at Phoenix.
Blaney is 18 points below the cutline.
Next: The final race in the Round of 8 is scheduled at 2 p.m.
ET (NBC) Oct. 30 at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.
That race will complete the Championship Four field for the Nov. 6 season finale at Phoenix Raceway. source