TALLADEGA, Ala.: Emerging from the chaos of Monday’s postponed 1000Bulbs.com 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Corey Lajoie and his No. 32 Go Fas Racing somehow escaped the carnage of the 188-lap race and earned his second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series top-10 finish of the season.
In typical Go Fas Racing fashion, the team had the strategy to remain at the back of the lead pack but as the cars dwindled at the front of the pack, the No. 32 VisoneRV.com Ford Mustang made its presence known inside the top-10.
Lajoie had hoped to put himself and his under-budgeted team in contention for a breakthrough victory in a restart with two laps to go but couldn’t find the drafting help in the final 5.32 miles of the race to reach Victory Lane.
Still, Lajoie’s seventh-place finish is the second straight top-10 finish for the Mooresville, N.C.-based team on a superspeedway when the team finished a career-best sixth in the postponed Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in July.
“We call that stacking pennies,” offered Lajoie. You take a 33rd-place car and finish seventh with it, so we’ll take it and run.”
“(This) make a little more money,” he added. “That always helps, so that’s good. Archie (St. Hilaire) is happy I’m sure. The car is in one piece and we’ll go on to Kansas.”
For Go Fas Racing, it was the team owner’s St. Hilaire fifth career top-10 Cup finish since 2012, two of them with Lajoie.
Lajoie, 26, who announced last week that he and his wife, Kelly are expecting next Easter remains unsigned for the 2020 season but does have options on the table, including returning to Go Fas Racing for a sophomore season.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
