DOVER, Del. — Even though it took 55 minutes plus a lifetime to find himself behind the wheel of a NASCAR Xfinity Series car, Lavar Scott still thought he had a few more minutes to prepare.
There he was at Dover Motor Speedway, the “Monster Mile” concrete track 55 minutes south of his New Jersey home, strapped into Alpha Prime Racing’s No. 45 car and getting ready to qualify for Saturday’s race in the second tier of NASCAR’s professional levels.
Scott was in the qualifying line and supposed to roll out sixth, but one car in front of him didn’t show up due to damage in practice. Then, two others in the line were unable to make a lap due to mechanical problems.
Suddenly, a NASCAR official pointed at Scott’s car. He was next. Time to go. Now.
“Qualifying is one of the hardest things we do as race car drivers, and there’s a routine to it,” said Scott’s car owner, Tommy Joe Martins. “It’s no different than a golfer right before he hits a shot or a batter before he steps into the batter’s box.
“Except this time, it was a scramble drill. They’re like, ‘You’re going out right now,’ and suddenly he’s firing off to go make the race. It’s one of those things that unless you’ve done it, nobody else can understand how hard that is.”
But Scott didn’t have time to think. His team put the window net up. He started the engine, and he hit the gas to try and make the best lap of his life.
The 21-year-old’s entire racing career had built to this moment: a chance to race in one of NASCAR’s national series. But only if he qualified into the race first.
Lavar Scott drives during practice Saturday in Dover, Del. This weekend was the 21-year-old’s first time in a NASCAR national series ride. (Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)
In some ways, Scott seemed destined to race NASCAR at Dover. Just across the river from Wilmington, on the other side of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Scott’s Auto repair shop founded by his grandfather has been a mainstay in Carneys Point, N.J., since 1978.
The extended Scott family has all been around the business at one point or another, and the interest in cars led to an interest in racing for many of them. Lavar’s mother competed in regional drag racing events. His grandfather and brother raced micro sprints.
But Lavar has been the one closest to turning a passion for racing into a potential career. As a Black driver with a dirt racing background, he applied for NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity development program and was accepted on the second try as a 16-year-old.
He and his grandmother relocated to Charlotte, N.C., so he could race pavement Late Models, but his family was so unsure whether he’d stick that they got him a camper rather than risk signing an apartment lease and breaking it after a few months. They parked it in a campground on the property of Charlotte Motor Speedway, a small and temporary home for a teenager with big dreams.
After a year, Scott’s grandmother returned to New Jersey and left him to live alone in the camper as a 17-year-old who would ride his bicycle to the Rev Racing shop on the other side of the racetrack property each day.
“I hated being in the camper by myself, so I just tried to spend as much time as I could in the shop,” he said. “It was definitely lonely, but I wanted to do whatever it took to give myself an opportunity.”
Scott eventually graduated from driving Late Models for Rev Racing to racing the team’s cars in the ARCA Series, which is essentially NASCAR’s fourth-tier circuit. He is still full-time in that series (currently third in the season standings after finishing second last year), but an opportunity to make his Xfinity Series debut at his home track arose when Alpha Prime offered him the No. 45 car for a weekend.
Rajah Caruth, left, and Lavar Scott talk during practice last weekend in Dover, Del. “He’s a very cerebral guy, he does the work,” Caruth, a Truck Series regular, says of Scott. (Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)
Martins, a 38-year-old Mississippi native and former full-time Xfinity Series driver, had met Scott through Rajah Caruth, another diversity program graduate who raced for Alpha Prime.
Caruth, who calls Scott “lil bro” and has served as a mentor for the younger driver, shares similar personality traits and a background in the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program (which announced earlier this year it is changing the name to simply “Driver Development” and dropping the “diversity” label).
“Raj was extremely detailed and prepared and a hard worker and in shape, so you start checking all the boxes,” Martins said. “With Lavar, it’s the same thing: Very humble, really nice kid, good family, really cares, cherishes the opportunity.
“We’re going through a really tough time in the country when it comes to pushback on diversity and inclusion programs, so these kids who have these opportunities have to be Teflon. They can’t show up and mail it in; they have to be the most prepared guys out there.”
That helped give Martins more confidence to give Scott a chance, because the team was putting the newcomer in a challenging position: Having to qualify the car into the field instead of driving one of the “locked-in” entries who show up without fear of failing to make the race.
Scott is the type of driver who likes to arrive at his car for practice and qualifying in plenty of time, preferring to get his mind right rather than try to rush anything. And that was the case at Dover, when he walked to his car for practice in a fresh white firesuit, chatted with family members, and took a couple pictures with fans before climbing in for his first-ever laps in an Xfinity Series car.
Then, moments later, he posted the third-fastest speed of anyone in practice — an eye-opener to be sure, particularly in an Alpha Prime car. Martins’ team is known for punching above its weight and scraping together solid finishes despite being at a deficit for resources compared to the competition. So when Scott was third on the charts, pacing ahead of many more experienced drivers, it was a terrific start.
But it was only that; practice laps guarantee nothing for qualifying, and Scott would soon be headed home if he didn’t put together a perfect lap in the time trials. The nearly 100 family and friends who bought tickets for the race might as well turn around and head back to New Jersey, too.
The pressure was on, although Scott didn’t visibly show it.
“Raj has been racing his entire life with a ton of people looking at him because he’s usually the only Black driver in the field, and Lavar has been going through the same stuff,” Martins said. “So the pressure he felt was pressure he primarily put on himself — not from the external pressure of everyone looking at him and the media and all that. He’s already used to that.”
Lavar Scott came through NASCAR’s diversity program, living in a camper during it. “I hated being in the camper by myself, so I (spent) as much time as I could in the shop,” he says. (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
But Scott wasn’t used to the hectic pace of getting ready when three cars pulled out of lin in front of him. He planned to “get in early, take my time, sit there, think and breathe — especially for one of the biggest moments of my career.” Except suddenly, that luxury was gone.
“It wasn’t the best circumstances,” he said. “But as an athlete, I train for pressure situations. You just hope you go do the job.”
Scott’s No. 45 rolled off pit road and looked smooth and fast around the concrete surface. When he came across the finish line, the scoring monitor popped with an attention-getting number: 24.192 seconds, which was faster than both of his Alpha Prime teammates, plus three cars from the well-funded Kaulig Racing team and two-time defending Dover race winner Ryan Truex.
It was enough to put him in the 22nd starting spot out of 38 cars, and an emotional Scott wiped tears away as he celebrated making the race with his supporters.
“This is literally the biggest day of his entire life, and we put him in a spot where he was a go-or-go-home driver,” Martins said. “Not only did he make it, he freaking crushed it.”
Caruth, who also made a spot start in the Xfinity race, barely blinked an eye at seeing Scott perform under pressure and make it into the field.
“He’s a very cerebral guy, he does the work, he shows up and has been waiting on a shot,” Caruth said. “He did it with qualifying in and making the most of what that car has got. So I’m super proud of him, and I’m not surprised at all at how he’s done this weekend. He’s got what it takes.”
Martins viewed the race itself as a bonus (“He’s already done the hardest part of this whole weekend”), but Scott had bigger ambitions. Scott said he wanted to “get a top-25, with a top-20 as a great day” — which is harder than it sounds. Alpha Prime’s average finish as an organization across 342 starts is 23.6, and that’s not for a rookie driving his first-ever race in the series.
“I know he wants to come out here and make a splash, but no offense: I’m not going to put a number on it,” Martins said. “It literally does not matter if you finish 33rd or 23rd. The goal for him is to just finish the race and learn over the course of time. He needs to shift from offense to defense and just survive the race.”
Martins leaned forward to emphasize a point.
“Like, think about this: These are going to be the first live pit stops he’s ever done,” Martins said. “They don’t do hot pit stops in ARCA. He’s done pit stop practice, but Dover is a tight pit road. He’s going to blow through his pit stall and have to get pushed back — all that kind of stuff.”
Sure enough, after Scott finished 24th in Stage 1 and was coming in for his first-ever pit stop, he locked up the brakes and got too close to the pit wall. He fell to 32nd and ended up finishing 28th in a rain-shortened race — on the lead lap and with an unscathed car, but kicking himself for the one big mistake he made.
“I’m happy, but it’s like, ‘What could have been?’” Scott said afterward. “I could have had that top-20 or top-25, but I messed up that pit stop really bad and lost everything there. But that’s why we get experience, and that’s why it was my debut, to hopefully get the mistakes out of the way early.”
Martins has already decided to give Scott another shot in the team’s car later this year, at World Wide Technology Raceway outside St. Louis. In the meantime, Scott plans to keep working on finding sponsorship — he has no ride for next season at the moment — and improving his performance in ARCA, where he’ll race again this weekend in Indianapolis.
“Going from ARCA to Xfinity isn’t one step up, it’s like 20 steps up,” Martins said. “He came here and controlled his emotions, was prepared, executed a perfect practice and outstanding qualifying run to get himself in the show.
“By going through that, his confidence in ARCA is going to be way up. Just watch him now for the rest of the year.”
(Top photo: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)