COREY LAJOIE | KAZ GRALA
Kansas Advance
Event Overview
● Event: Hollywood Casino 400 (Round 30 of 36)
● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Sept. 29
● Location: Kansas Speedway in Kansas City
● Layout: 1.5-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 267 laps/400.5 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 80 laps / Stage 2: 85 laps / Final Stage: 102 laps
● TV/Radio: USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Corey LaJoie, Driver of the No. 51 Chidren’s Mercy Kansas City Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Corey LaJoie, driver of the No. 51 Children’s Mercy Kansas City Ford Mustang Dark Horse, will make his first start for Rick Ware Racing (RWR) Sunday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. LaJoie has 12 previous Cup Series starts at the 1.5-mile oval. His best finish there was a 19th-place result earned in May 2022.
● Riding along with LaJoie for this weekend’s Hollywood Casino 400 as part of the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation’s and NASCAR Foundation’s Honor a Cancer Hero program is Jessie Rees. At 11 years of age, Jessie was diagnosed with an incurable and inoperable form of brain cancer. While working through an out-patient clincal trial at Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Southern California, Jessie learned other kids had to stay in the hospital for weeks and months, inspiring the creation of JoyJars. Jessie’s JoyJars were delivered to more than 3,000 children fighting cancer while Jessie continued her fight. Jessie lost her fight to cancer on January 5, 2012. In her honor, the Jessie Rees Foundation was created to keep joy flowing to kids fighting cancer and to encourage them to Never Ever Give Up. As of January 2024, more than 500,000 JoyJars have been sent to kids fighting cancer in all 50 states and 53 countries.
● In the Cup Series’ last visit to Kansas on May 5, LaJoie finished 26th for Spire Motorsports. RWR’s No. 51 team started 35th in a field of 38 cars that day and finished 18th.
● In addition to his Cup Series starts at Kansas, LaJoie also owns one start each in the Xfinity Series and ARCA Menards Racing Series in 2014 and 2013, respectively. He qualified second and led a lap in the ARCA event before an accident ended his bid before the halfway mark.
Kaz Grala, Driver of the No. 15 Remixers Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Kaz Grala is set to make his first Kansas start in the NASCAR Cup Series in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400. Grala has two NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at the 1.5-mile oval – a 13th-place finish from the third starting position in July 2020, and a 10th-place finish from the 31st starting position in September 2023.
● The Boston native also has two Truck Series races at Kansas under his belt with a best finish of eighth earned in May 2017.
● Though this is his first start at Kansas in NASCAR’s premier series, Grala has 10 starts on intermediate tracks with an average finish of 26.2.
Rick Ware Racing Notes
● The Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series heads this weekend to World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, near St. Louis. In last weekend’s event at zMAX Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, RWR’s Clay Millican powered his Top Fuel dragster to a semifinal appearance. The performance moved Millican to fifth in the playoff standings with four events remaining.
● Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age six when the third-generation racer began his driving career and has since spanned four wheels and two wheels on both asphalt and dirt. Competing in the SCCA Trans Am Series and other road-racing divisions led Ware to NASCAR in the early 1980s, where he finished third in his NASCAR debut – the 1983 Warner W. Hodgdon 300 NASCAR Grand American race at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway. More than a decade later, injuries would force Ware out of the driver seat and into fulltime team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that fields two fulltime entries in the NASCAR Cup Series while simultaneously campaigning successful teams in the Top Fuel class of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, Progressive American Flat Track and FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX), where RWR won the 2022 SX2 championship with rider Shane McElrath.
Corey LaJoie, Driver Q&A
Sunday will mark your first race with RWR after an unprecedent driver swap that was announced last weekend at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. How has this week been with the new team?
“This week at Kansas is a new opportunity for myself, as well as RWR and the No. 51 team. It’s been fun integrating into their organization and process this week to prepare for our first race together.”
What do enjoy about the intermediate-style racing at Kansas?
“Kansas is one of my favorite intermediate tracks with its multiple lane options and fast speeds. We will go execute a strong weekend like we all know how to and see how it shakes out.”
Kaz Grala, Driver Q&A
This your first Cup Series start at Kansas, but is it safe to say you’ve learned enough to know what to expect from the Next Gen car at these intermediate tracks, in general?
“I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the NextGen cars at this point in the season. I’ve come a long way in knowing what to expect out of these cars throughout the race and in dirty air and feel like I’m able to get much more out of them than when I first started. I didn’t do the spring race at Kansas, so it will be my first time in a Cup car there, but I’ve raced there a handful of times in Trucks and Xfinity. It’s always been one of my favorite mile-and-a-halves, so I’m really looking forward to getting out there this weekend.”
You’ve got a new teammate this weekend. What is the most important asset Corey brings to the team?
“Corey brings eight years of Cup experience to RWR, and at a smaller team like ours, that goes a long way.”
