News & Notes: Momentum Carries Lavender To Tri-County

By Jason Christley, NASCAR • Original Article

04/21/09 - For Jody Lavender (No. 88 H&R Block Chevrolet), he couldn’t ask to be in better position heading into the second race of the NASCAR Camping World Series East. Lavender will arrive at Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson, N.C., Saturday coming off a second-place finish in the season opener. With points leader Brian Ickler in Kansas getting a shot in Billy Ballew’s No. 51 for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event, Lavender will unload his hauler in the top position.

Jody Lavender recorded his best career finish at Greenville Pickens Speedway with a second-place run. Steve Dykes/Getty Images for NASCAR

Against a field full of talented development drivers and multi-car operations, the significance isn’t lost on Lavender, whose team had just one full-time employee and may be bringing one of the oldest cars to the track.

“The guys have worked really hard over the winter,” said Lavender. “They really went through and fixed the car up real nice for us. I felt like we had a top three car, and it was pretty much up to me to make sure we finished that way.”

That was one of the struggles for the 29-year-old Hartsville, S.C., native. Last year, Lavender finished 11th in his first NASCAR Camping World Series East season. He started 12 of the 13 races and record a top five and six top 10s.

Previous to 2008, Lavender had made 23 starts between the NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

“We’ve had some pretty good cars at some places,” said Lavender, “but we were just not able to put together the whole race and get the type of finish we should have.”

It was almost over before it began in the season opener at Greenville (S.C.) Pickens Speedway.

Lavender was one of the unfortunates that was caught up in the multi-car incident in Turn 1 of the first lap that caused series officials to bring out the red flag for cleanup, and then restart the race. After that, though, Lavender was able to methodically work his way up through the field. He cracked the top 10 by lap 50, and was up to third by lap 100. He got by fellow veteran Eddie MacDonald (No. 71 Grimm Construction Chevrolet) on a lap 134 restart when MacDonald got hung up on the outside lane, and then had two cracks at Ickler on ensuing restarts before settling for second.

Considering the progress that signified from his 2008 campaign, he’ll happily take that finish heading to Tri-County.

“It’s huge,” Lavender said. “Momentum is everything in this sport. Getting that type of run right off the bat is instrumental for any race team. These guys here, they don’t have a lot of money. We get a little bit of help from H&R Block and some smaller sponsor.

“You’ve got a bunch of guys who are there for the love of the sport – not for the money or the glory – they’re there because they love what they do. And when you go out and compete against the bigger teams and the development drivers, that means more to these guys than anything else.

“It shows that a little bit of hard work and effort can still get you to the front.”
 

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