Catchfence

Mooresville, NC (November 7, 2011)– In his first career start on a track longer than a half mile in length, Cory Joyce made his debut in UARA-STARS competition this weekend at Rockingham Speedway with a new crew chief in his corner, LandAirSea on the hood of his Impala, and anticipation to behind the wheel at the tough one-mile oval. The weekend of firsts for Joyce resulted in quick success as he cruised with his No. 33 Impala to a respectable sixth place finish in Saturday afternoon’s American 200.

Rain washed out practice and qualifying on Friday afternoon, so the teams were up early Saturday morning to complete both sessions before the scheduled start time of the 75-lap UARA main event. Crew chief Andy Loden and his driver quickly found during practice that the hard work and changes they made on the car before heading to the track had paid off, and only minor adjustments were needed before Joyce was content with the handling. The 19-year-old driver then laid down a lap during the time trials that placed him 12th on the starting grid.

“We spent a lot of time getting ready for the race at the shop and I think the biggest thing that helped Cory was that the car was prepared and close to where we needed it to be right when we unloaded at the track. It saved us a lot of time during practice so he was able to focus on just getting used to a bigger and faster track than what he was used to,” Loden said.

Slowly working his way up through the field from the start, Joyce carefully picked off cars one by one until the mandatory pit stop at lap 25. Though he avoided all trouble during each caution period of the day, he struggled to get quick restarts with the No. 33 LandAirSea machine. Losing a few spots each time, he was able to make up time quickly once going back to green flag racing with a fast racecar.

“We had our car handling pretty well throughout most of the race; I could run any line I really wanted to on the track which was helpful on the restarts,” Joyce commented.

While Joyce was running solidly in the top-five as the laps wound down and worked on catching the leaders, a late caution threw the team for a loop and setup the field with a green-white-checkered restart to the finish. Joyce unfortunately also discovered a new issue under the final caution in the form of a broken front shock mount. Forced to hang on in the final two laps, Joyce would lose one position and slide just outside the top five into sixth.
“It’s unfortunate we had the broken shock mount at the end because we had worked really hard all day to break into the top-five. We weren’t great on the restarts but the car didn’t fall off during the longer runs like everyone else’s did,” Joyce explained. “Racing at a bigger, more challenging track like Rockingham was a lot of fun and suits my driving style really well. I’m looking forward to a lot more like this in the future.”

“UARA is not an easy series; it’s hard and there’s a lot of competition. We’re all really happy Cory did so well in the race and were impressed with what he was able to do,” Loden concluded.

About Cory Joyce:

Cory Joyce is a 19-year-old driver originally from Gilford, N.H. After a successful career in go karts, Joyce and his family moved to Mooresville, N.C., to progress the Cory Joyce Racing program. Joyce earned 2009 Rookie of the Year honors in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Limited Late Model Division at Hickory Motor Speedway in Hickory, N.C. Since then, Joyce has continued to move forward with his stock car racing career, making select Late Model Stock appearances along the East Coast. Beyond 2011, Joyce is working towards his next step into the NASCAR K&N Pro Series. For more about Cory Joyce, visit coryjoyce.com.

About LandAirSea:

One of the pioneers in GPS-based surveillance technology since 1994, LandAirSea Systems, Inc., is headquartered in Woodstock, Illinois and serves a broad base of clients, including government agencies, individual consumers and businesses of all sizes. Standing apart from other GPS systems, LandAirSea products are built from superior design and are noted for their ease of application and quality customer service backing. The Cory Joyce Racing team utilizes their LandAirSea GPS system to track Cory on the racetrack as he turns each lap, recording how fast he’s going and allowing the team to download other data. Joyce’s fans are also able to follow his progress around the track in real time from his website. For more information, please visit LandAirSea.com.

- Cory Joyce Racing Press Release