When LaJoie said “real racing,” he meant it quite literally. Spire Motorsports acquired the assets of Furniture Row Racing prior to the 2019 season and has been running on a shoe-string budget with a plethora of drivers ever since.
In two years in the Cup Series, the team has fielded cars for no less than 14 drivers and run mostly toward the rear of the field. The lone exception is the team’s upset victory in the 2019 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Int’l Speedway, when Justin Haley was leading as rain stopped the race after 127 of the scheduled 160 laps.
“The fan base can look at what Spire has done over the past couple of years, you know, running as they have just trying to work the charter game,” LaJoie said. “Now, they’re sitting on three (charters) and they’ve positioned themselves better than a lot of teams in the field for this Next Gen car. They’re playing a long game. They’re playing it smart.”
Near the end of last season, Spire Motorsports acquired the charter and assets of Leavine Family Racing. It was the moment that Spire Motorsports decided to go from being a field filler to going, as LaJoie called it, real racing.
“When the news came out that they bought the 95 (Leavine Family Racing) charter, I texted him (Dickerson),” LaJoie said. “I said, ‘When do you want me to drop my seats off?’ A couple weeks went by and I’m sure he got bamboozled by a bunch of stuff. When those conversations started happening, he texted me and was like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to meet.’
“I had a couple of options we were looking at hot and heavy,” LaJoie continued. “After that first meeting with those guys; they had no clue where they were getting cars from or people they were going to hire, engines or none of that, but I knew I wanted to be a part of what they were trying to build because everything that T.J. has had his hands on is successful and everything that Jeff has worked on has turned out really well as well.”
Since joining Spire Motorsports, a lot of the question marks at the team have been answered. The team has moved into Leavine Family Racing’s old shop in Concord, N.C., the same shop once owned by 1992 Cup Series champion Alan Kulwicki.
The team has inked agreements with Chip Ganassi Racing to supply race cars and Hendrick Motorsports to furnish engines for the No. 7 Chevrolets. Ryan Sparks, who was LaJoie’s crew chief with Go FAS Racing, will continue in that role with Spire.
“Ryan knows the feel I like for in the race car,” LaJoie said. “We don’t have to have that learning curve, especially with no practice. You can’t be looking for a feel or communication, we’ve got that out of the way.
“It wasn’t like we came over as a package,” LaJoie continued. “They vetted him out. We chose the best candidate available for the job and that’s Ryan Sparks. Then he brought a couple of guys, the best guys that were over at Go FAS. He was confident with the car chief and the engineer and some guys from the shop. He brought those guys over with him. So we’ve got a strong team that he’s building from the inside out.”
LaJoie is invested in building something with Spire Motorsports. He has a team and crew who want to succeed, and he believes he has the passion, desire and skill to deliver results.
How invested is LaJoie you ask? He personally built the sign that sits outside the Spire Motorsports shop.
“I’ve driven by that shop a million times,” LaJoie said. “I pulled in there and I’m like, ‘Hey, what are we going to do about a sign?’ They have way bigger fish to fry than what sign is going to go out in front of their building. They hadn’t even thought about it. We’re trying to get you some race cars to drive, some engines to mash the gas on and get some people hired.
“I said, ‘Guys, can I build it?’ Those guys don’t know what I do or what tools I have over at dad’s shop to make some stuff with, but I knew I could whip something up really sweet.”
LaJoie lived up to his word. Using the skills he developed while working for his father’s business, The Joie of Seating, LaJoie crafted an eye-catching sign that sits out in front of the Spire Motorsports facility.
“It ended up looking up really cool and we got it put up in the same spot that Alan Kulwicki had his sign out in front of the shop back in the early ’90s. It’s going to be really cool,” LaJoie said.