Lavender Grabs Second Place at Hickory
 

Mooresville, NC (July 11, 2005) - Jody Lavender, driver of the No. 84 H&R Block/Heritage Community Bank Ford, finished with a strong run at Hickory on Saturday, grabbing second place. The second place finish would be Jody’s second top 5 and fifth top 10 finish on the year, and advances him from No. 8 to No. 7 in the Southern Division points standing.

Jody started off the day with a good car, but during practice and qualifying, there were a number cars faster than the No. 84 Ford. Jody stacked up 18th quickest during the final practice session and qualified 11th among 32 cars. Clearly, Jody and the team would have their work cut out for them at HMS.

By lap No. 43, Jody would drop a few positions to 14th. However, by lap No. 70 he would move back up to 12th place. On lap No. 90, there was an accident that would bring out another caution. At this time, a number of cars would make the first round of pit stops. Jody remained on the track and on lap No. 98 was in 10th place. While in 10th place, Jody pitted on lap No. 160 under caution with a few other lead lap cars. The crew performed well and Jody came out of the pits still in 10th place. By lap No. 176 Jody had advanced two positions to 8th place. By lap 190, he was in 6th place and steadily advanced throughout the balance of the race. On lap No. 245 he passed the No. 38 car of Shane Wallace to take 2nd place, where he would finish the race.

“There were two things that were in our favor tonight”, said Jody. “The first and most important thing was consistency. Steve and the crew gave me a good setup and the car just maintained great consistency throughout the night. We had a great pit stop and they made an adjustment that improved the handling in the end. And luck was definitely on our side tonight.” There is no question that was an understatement. With 11 cautions on the night, Jody was able to avoid all serious incidents. And, Jody was able to capitalize on other driver’s bad luck, such as cut tires, blown motors, etc. In the end, Jody was tracking down the No. 81 car of Shane Huffman. But at the time he moved into second place there were only five laps remaining. Huffman’s car was fast and there just was not enough time to make anything of it.

Jody’s 2nd place finish at Hickory was his 2nd top 5 and 4th top ten in the last four races. Jody and the team will build off this momentum and look forward to the next race at Southern National Speedway in Kenly, NC on 07/23/05.

More information about Jody can be found at www.jodylavender.com and www.usarprocup.com.

 

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