FLAT ROCK, Mich. – A division of the ARCA Menards Series returns to Flat Rock Speedway on Saturday for the first time since 2000 and 20-year-old Lavar Scott will be front and center.
The ARCA Menards Series is considered the minor league feeder to the professional ranks of NASCAR. The division that’s racing at Flat Rock is the ARCA Menards Series East.
Scott, a New Jersey native, is making his fifth appearance of the season. In his first four races, he placed fourth, fifth, fifth, and sixth. His best performance of those four was his series debut at Daytona International Speedway where he led for 14 of the 80 laps and earned that fourth-place finish.
“I wanted to win it, but to still lead laps there . . . it’s Daytona, that’s everybody’s dream to race there,” Scott said about his performance.
Flat Rock Speedway poses a different challenge than the two-and-a-half mile, wide open track of Daytona. This track is just a quarter mile long with tight lanes and banked slopes. Nineteen other drivers will join Scott on the tighter track for the 150-lap race.
Scott is also a part of the Drive for Diversity Development Program within NASCAR. He is one of eight drivers in this year’s program. The program, founded by NASCAR in 2004, was put in place to develop and train ethnically diverse, and female drivers both on and off the track.
Scott’s racing team, Rev Racing, is the main driving force of the program.
“NASCAR Diversity, Max Siegal, and Rev Racing really give a lot of kids like me and a lot of females, Hispanics, and African Americans the chance to make it into the race and make it to the cup series,” he said.
Some notable graduates of the Rev Racing team and the Drive for Diversity Development Program are Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson who both went on to win in the NASCAR national series.
For Scott, seeing Wallace, a driver that looks like him, succeed at that level of racing carries a lot of importance. He hopes seeing someone that looks like them continues to inspire young drivers, like himself, to start and keep driving.
“It was huge for me. I can’t even explain how huge it is for other kids. Watching Bubba Wallace and videos of Wendell Scott and Billy Foster and seeing there was people like me before I was here to do it let me know if you really work hard enough and put your mind to it, you can do anything you want,” he said.
The Dutch Boy 150 at Flat Rock Speedway is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 20, and is expected to run straight through with no break or competition cautions.