INDIANAPOLIS — Corey LaJoie knows he’s on the losing end of a publicity battle after Kyle Busch called him a “liar” and vowed “payback is coming” on Friday’s edition of “The Pat McAfee Show.”
But that doesn’t mean LaJoie likes it.
“He should at least answer a text or a phone call after I’ve tried to tell him my story,” LaJoie told The Athletic on Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway after qualifying for Sunday’s Brickyard 400. “I understand he has every right to be mad, but for him to go on the biggest talk show in the country and call me a liar, it pisses me off.”
LaJoie wrecked Busch last weekend at Pocono Raceway; that much is not in dispute. After Busch threw a block on LaJoie, the two continued toward Turn 1 and LaJoie bumped Busch’s No. 8 car in the left rear, sending him crashing (along with a half-dozen other cars).
Initially, LaJoie acknowledged he was “flippant” about the incident in his post-race comments and sincerely believed Busch had blocked him a second time. Only after seeing footage and “putting the pieces together” did LaJoie realize he’d made a mistake and changed his story.
“The moral of the story at Pocono was I crashed him bigger than s—, but it wasn’t intentional,” LaJoie said. “The original story that I saw out of the windshield and was told from (crew chief Ryan) Sparks was my perception. After I got a chance to look at the replay and saw the in-car cameras, I saw what happened — but it never was intentional in the first place and that remains the case.
“So for him to say I changed my story ‘four times’ and I’m a liar pisses me off.”
LaJoie said he isn’t particularly worried about on-track payback because a premeditated wreck would likely come with a harsh NASCAR penalty for Busch. In reality, LaJoie said Busch is more likely to initiate contact that appears to be an accident.
“A guy like him and a guy like Denny (Hamlin), we’ve seen it where when those guys crash you, they’re good enough to where it doesn’t look like it’s intentional,” LaJoie said. “So I anticipate something like that — we’re running side by side and it’s ‘Man, I lost the nose (of the car)’ and they plug you in the fence and it’s ‘Sorry about your bad luck.’”
And if it is a blatant crash attempt from Busch?
“We’re big boys, and I’ve stacked enough pennies to where if we had to fight and punch people in the face and it cost me 75 grand after whatever goes down, that’s what we’ll do,” LaJoie said.
Aside from an incident at Martinsville last year, LaJoie said the drivers haven’t had any history and typically race each other well. As LaJoie said on his “Stacking Pennies” podcast this week, he was planning to slide in right behind Busch — except an in-car feed from Busch had audio of the No. 8 car getting on the rev limiter, which LaJoie believes cost Busch just enough speed for them to collide as he tried to move up.
If that hadn’t happened, LaJoie said, “I blend in behind him and we all live to fight another day.”
“But it’s also my responsibility to not hit him,” he added.
Busch qualified a disappointing 34th for the Brickyard 400, continuing a miserable season of career lows for the two-time champion and future Hall of Famer. He was tight-lipped with the NASCAR media after his qualifying lap on Saturday and refused to elaborate on his remarks to McAfee.
But LaJoie suspected the Pocono incident was “probably the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of (Busch’s) Give-A-F— Meter, because it’s been pegged.”
“And if I’m on the receiving end of (retaliation),” he added, “we’ll adjust accordingly and we’ll figure it out.”
Required reading
(Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
