COREY LAJOIE | KAZ GRALA
Martinsville Advance
Event Overview
● Event: XFINITY 500 (Round 35 of 36)
● Time/Date: 2 p.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 3
● Location: Martinsville (Va.) Speedway
● Layout: .526-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 500 laps/263 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 130 laps / Stage 2: 130 laps / Final Stage: 240 laps
● TV/Radio: NBC / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Corey LaJoie, Driver of the No. 51 Jacob Construction Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Corey LaJoie, driver of the No. 51 Jacob Construction Ford Mustang Dark Horse, will make his 14th career Martinsville (Va.) Speedway start in Sunday’s XFINITY 500. He owns two 18th-place finishes, his best at the paperclip-shaped half-mile, and an average finish of 26.6 with 14 total laps led.
● Outside of NASCAR’s premier series, LaJoie owns a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour start at Martinsille. On October 27, 2022, LaJoie started fifth and led 110 laps en route to victory. It was his lone win in three starts in 2022, all of which resulted in top-10 finishes.
● Jacob Construction returns to the No. 51 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for the first time since LaJoie joined the team. Jacob is a nationally certified, WBENC, woman owned, multifaceted firm with a focus on construction, design-build services, structural concrete and technology.
Kaz Grala, Driver of the No. 15 Meat N’ Bone Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Kaz Grala, driver of the No. 15 Meat N’ Bone Ford Mustang Dark Horse, will make his second Cup Series Martinsville start Sunday. In his first start at the half-mile, paperclip-shaped oval on April 7, Grala qualified 31st and finished 26th.
● In addition to his Cup Series experience at Martinsville, Grala owns two starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and four in the Craftsman Truck series. His best Xfinity Series finish was his first, a 15th-place effort in April 2023. In the Truck Series, Grala earned a top-10 and three top-15 finishes, his best being a seventh-place result in October 2017.
● Meat N’ Bone is an online butcher shop offering premium quality meats delivered locally and shipped nationally. Customers can order from more than 300 products, including USDA Prime and Wagyu A5, and have it delivered fresh to their door. Meat N’ Bone also offers local pickup and a personalized retail experience in its boutiques.
Rick Ware Racing Notes
● The Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series is back in action this weekend for the penultimate event of the season, the Las Vegas Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Three weekends ago at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Top Fuel driver Clay Millican advanced to the final round, but points leader Justin Ashley took the win by just .022 of a second. Millican is sixth in the Countdown to the Championship playoff standings with 2,308 points, 114 out of first.
● The 2024 FIM World Supercross Championship season kicked off last Saturday with the WSX Canadian GP at the BC Place in Vancouver, where RWR WSX 450 rider Luke Clout began Saturday with a fourth-place showing in practice, qualifying and SuperPole. But, it was Mitch Oldenburg who qualified for the WSX SuperFinal and finished sixth in the 450 class. Following the WSX Canadian GP, Oldenburg is ranked sixth with 61 points and Clout is 12th with 28. In the SX2 250 class, rookie rider Coty Schock showed speed to grab the second spot in Saturday practice and followed that up with a second-place showing in qualifying. Shock finished third in the second race of the night, with teammate Enzo Lopes taking second in the third race. Both racers qualified for the SuperFinal. The RWR riders finished second and third with Lopes leading the way in the SX2 class. Overall, Lopes finished the WSX Canadian GP fourth with 76 points with Schock just two points behind in fifth. Next up on the WSX schedule is the World Supercross Australian GP Doubleheader Nov. 23-24 in Perth.
● 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
Is it easier to go into a race with more confidence when you’ve won there, like you did at Martinsville in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour in 2022?
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter what car or series the win comes in, you’re going to have a little more confidence because you know you’ve done it at that track before. Martinsville is the same no matter what you’re driving. It’s more about trying to stay in that rhythm every lap and not letting the little things get in the way. You’re going to get roughed up, but that’s part of it. It’s short-track racing at its best and it’s that much more rewarding when you can leave with a good finish.”
Do you enjoy that type of short-track racing?
“It’s fun until it isn’t. There are so many ways it can go wrong, but I really enjoy short-track racing where the driver can make a big difference in how the race goes. You know track position is going to be important, you know there will be teams trying different strategies when we get down to the cautions that just keep coming. It just comes down to not messing up those opportunities to put your car at the front of the field. I really think we can have a strong weekend and I’m looking forward to getting to Martinsville with the No. 51 team.”
Kaz Grala, Driver Q&A
What has been the biggest change for you from the first Martinsville race to this weekend?
“Time and experience in the Cup car, I think, is the biggest difference. Everyone is on such a level playing field and it makes it that much harder to show progress. I feel like we’ve learned a lot as a team and the amount of progress from the beginning of the season to now is a lot greater than it may appear to others. I’m a lot more confident that I know what I need to do as a driver in this car to make the most out of a weekend, which is all the more important when we get to a track like Martinsville, where the race is in the driver’s hands.”
Martinsville is always chaotic, but the fall race always seems to deliver even more entertainment. Why do you think that is?
“We’re at the end of the season, that’s probably the main reason. Across the board, we’ve all had a long year. Tension begins to build up with how other drivers race throughout the year and you get to a track like Martinsville and it’s really easy to let your temper get the best of you. There is never a lap where you aren’t beating and banging against another car through the corner. Then you add in the guys who are trying to make the Championship 4 and that’s another layer of frustration. It’s the perfect combination of everything needed to make a race more volatile for the drivers and more exciting for the fans.”
