Through the gears: Move over Ronald Acuna and Trae Young, Corey LaJoie is the new Mr. Atlanta!

Look out Ronald Acuna and Trae Young, there’s a new contender for Mr. Atlanta. And he has better facial hair.

Enter Corey LaJoie, who worked his way up from 31^st to fourth over the course of Sunday’s 400 miles, scoring the best finish of his Cup Series career. That bested a fifth-place last year at, you guessed it, Atlanta. And he led 19 laps in the summer race, before a late-race dust-up with Chase Elliott for the lead relegated him to 21st.

In the podcast world, LaJoie is Stacking Pennies. At Atlanta, he’s stacking finishes. And his big day on Sunday, remarkably, put LaJoie and his underfunded Spire Motorsports team back in the top 16 In points.

“That’s what you try to do,” LaJoie shrugged after the race. “This place has been pretty good to me, so I’ll keep liking it.”

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First gear

Meanwhile, Stewart-Haas Racing had another forgettable day.

It’s quickly becoming a forgettable season.

In fairness, Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola both crashed from the lead in the final stage but the results — Chase Briscoe (24th), Ryan Preece (28th), Almirola (30th) and Harvick (33rd) — were flat-out ugly.

For Harvick, it was an outlier. As for the other three?

Yikes.

As it stands, Briscoe (24^th), Preece and Almirola (tied for 27^th) are all well outside the playoff picture. Briscoe is 39 points behind Tyler Reddick for 16^th with Almirola and Preece a whopping 48 points behind. The three have but one top 10 and three top 20s in 15 combined races.

Second gear

Darrell Waltrip used to affectionately refer to the middle lane as “the suck hole.”

Easy, DW.

On Sunday, it was anything but for Erik Jones, who used it to turn in a video-game last lap reminiscent of Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder. The masterclass in drafting, and the middle lane, took Jones from the low teens to eighth. Teammate Noah Gragson finished a respectable 12^th as well.

And boy, did Legacy Motor Club need that. In the four races prior, neither Jones, nor Gragson had finished higher than 19^th.

Third gear

If you’re looking for trends for this upcoming race at COTA, they are numerous.

Nine drivers scored top 10s in at least half of last year’s six road course races, with several of the same faces showing up each time right turns were involved.

Leading the way was Tyler Reddick, with a pair of wins and five top 10s. He and Chris Buescher led the series in the latter category.

Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell and AJ Allmendinger each had four top 10s, but perhaps even more surprising, neither Elliott nor Allmendinger scored a road-course win in 2022.

Fourth gear

Speaking of Mr. Popular, he’s still out and will yield not to Josh Berry, but to sportscar ace Jordan Taylor this week.

Undoubtedly, Taylor will be the most intriguing driver to adorn a HANS Device this week. He’s in the premier ride in all the Cup Series when it comes to road racing, and his resume, which includes wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring, speaks for itself.

How does that transfer to NASCAR? It’s going to be fun finding out.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: Move over Trae Young, Corey LaJoie is the new Mr. Atlanta