Corey LaJoie will drive the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford in the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in place of team co-owner and driver Brad Keselowski, the team announced Thursday and as first reported by FOX Sports.
Keselowski, the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion, is recovering from a broken right femur suffered in a fall exiting his vehicle on a Dec. 18 ski trip, FOX Sports reported. LaJoie is RFK Racing’s reserve driver and will make his first start for the organization in the Feb. 1 exhibition race (8 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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Keselowski intends to be back behind the wheel in time for the 68th annual Daytona 500 on Feb. 15 (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I didn’t want to rush back,” Keselowski said. “The team and I made the decision together that if all the rehab went absolutely perfect, we’d be ready like, literally, the day of The Clash.
“And that seemed super foolish and didn’t give us any time to do any testing on myself or anything like that.”
LaJoie has 276 Cup Series starts to his credit, last running a full season in 2024 before a four-race schedule in 2025 with Rick Ware Racing. The Concord, North Carolina native is a past winner at Bowman Gray, taking first place in the 2012 NASCAR Hall of Fame 150 in an ARCA Menards Series East race.
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“Happy to be of service,” LaJoie shared on social media. “Wishing BK a speedy recovery. Let‘s go get another trophy at The Madhouse.”
Keselowski added his rehabilitation process is six to eight hours per day and that normal recovery time is approximated between eight and 12 weeks. Per the report, Keselowski hopes to have a medical evaluation test Feb. 5 at Charlotte Motor Speedway to gain medical clearance to return to competition.
“It’s a really painful thing to break,” Keselowski said. “It’s the biggest bone in your body, which is kind of the bad part about it. The good thing is it’s also one of the fastest healing parts of your body, so I’m just really dealing with the pain and trying to recover as fast as I can.”
Keselowski, who joined RFK Racing as a driver and co-owner in 2022, told FOX Sports he slipped and fell on ice after returning to the ski resort, shearing his femur and needing emergency surgery in Boone, North Carolina.
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“I’ve broken a lot of different bones and parts of my body,” Keselowski said. “I will tell you, none of them come close to hurting as bad as breaking your femur. It’s a very painful injury, but the recovery is actually fairly similar in time and so forth. So I‘ve just got to be tough and get through it. …
“It’s kind of a freak accident. I just fell perfectly on a spot that broke my leg. I wish it was some cooler story than that, like jumping or doing something on the slopes. I think everybody thinks I did it on the slopes, which sounds a lot cooler than the actual story I have, but it just was a freak accident.”
Keselowski has not missed a points-paying NASCAR Cup Series race since October 2009 — a stretch of 581 consecutive races. Because The Clash is an exhibition race, Keselowski’s streak is not in jeopardy unless he was to miss the season-opening Daytona 500.
