Don’t expect Hawkeyes’ black-and-gold to get the checkers Sunday at Iowa Speedway

Corey LaJoie could be the top fan-favorite in Sunday night’s inaugural Iowa Corn 350 NASCAR Cup Series race, which is kind of funny.

For one thing, the driver of the No. 7 car that will have a black-and-gold paint job with a TigerHawk logo on the hood has to be an unknown quantity to Hawkeye fans.

For another, the feeling is mutual.

Asked Wednesday from his Charlotte, N.C., home if the Iowa Hawkeyes mean anything to him, his response was succinct.

“No.”

Followed by, “I don’t want to ”bull (expletive) you.“

That won’t dissuade people who cheer for anything containing their favorite team’s logos and colors, so LaJoie will have a fan club for a weekend at Newton’s Iowa Speedway. Besides, LaJoie said he’s glad to have the support.

The UI athletics department is a sponsor for the weekend in partnership with LaJoie’s Spire Motorsports team and full-time sponsor Gainbridge.

Gainbridge is one of the numerous companies in Caitlin Clark’s endorsement portfolio.

“From Caitlin Clark to now this, Gainbridge has stepped up to support Iowa athletics and we hope that all of Iowa will rally around Corey LaJoie and cheer him on to victory lane,” said Mike Nichols, an executive at Group 1001 Insurance Holdings, which owns Gainbridge.

Uh, no. There won’t be any postrace confetti and champagne for LaJoie, his Spire Motorsports crew, and Hawkeye World barring one of sports’ biggest upsets of the year.

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LaJoie’s 11th-place finish at Sonoma (Calif.) Sunday was his best since he was fourth at the season-opening Daytona 500. He is 30th in Cup Series points. He hasn’t won in his 253 career Cup starts.

Some people race for the elite teams with the elite resources. Others do the best they can in their situations.

Team owners Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske are billionaires who have the best-funded Cup Series operations. The playing field is different for Cup Series champions Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott than for LaJoie and his Stire teammates Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar.

“We’re still relatively small,” LaJoie said, “but that’s not an excuse. We should be more competitive than what we have been, and that’s what we’re continuing to work toward.

“If we can leave Iowa with a Top 15 or better I would consider that a good weekend.”

Like so many other top racecar drivers, LaJoie multitasks during the week. Last week, he became a father for the third time, so that’s plenty in itself.

He also hosts a podcast on NASCAR.com called Stacking Pennies that’s best seen on that site or YouTube because of all the video clips and audio from team scanners that accompany what LaJoie and his racing guests are discussing.

“It’s been a blast,” LaJoie said. “It’s a little peek behind the curtain on the highs and lows, the struggles. I interview some cool guys along the way. There are things you can see that you won’t see anywhere else.”

LaJoie also is involved with Samaritan’s Feet International, a humanitarian aid nonprofit that provides shoes to those in need around the world.

“We’re so out of touch with the reality of the entire world,” he said. “I’ve got 20 pairs of shoes. In three-fourths of the world, they don’t have one pair.

“I try to use this platform for good.”

Though this is the first Cup Series race in Newton, nearly the entire 36-driver field has competed there at one level or another. LaJoie won an ARCA race at Iowa in 2012.

“I was pumped up. I think it’s really cool,” he said when he learned last fall that the track had gotten its first Cup race. That’s a recurring sentiment among the Cup Series drivers who have raced at Iowa over the years in NASCAR or ARCA events.

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If Hawkeye fans are at all disappointed should LaJoie finish, say, 24th? Look at it as Iowa battling Ohio State and Georgia and Michigan and Alabama in the football rankings.

The Hawkeyes were 24th in the final AP poll last season. That wasn’t the stuff of podiums and parades, but it beat being outside the Top 25.

Besides, the relationship is only a one-night stand.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com