After watching Bubba Wallace, Lavar Scott ecstatic to begin full-time NASCAR career

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Lavar Scott has always been around racing.

It started with his grandfather, an automotive shop owner who was always enamored with race cars. That passion led Scott’s mother to become a drag racer, and his older brother was driving quarter midgets before Scott climbed into his first race car.

Now 20 years old and a member of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, Scott will compete full time in the ARCA Menards Series. An impressive run at Daytona last year kicked off a season in which Scott placed third in the East series standings, and he accomplished his goal of securing a season-long ride.

When he was growing up in Carneys Point, N.J., Scott knew who NASCAR’s top drivers were. He’d be on the go at tracks around the Northeast every weekend, but because of his love for the sport, he would often go back and watch highlights of races whenever he could.

And when Bubba Wallace started racing in NASCAR’s Cup Series, Scott felt a sense of motivation. Not only did watching a fellow Black driver succeed inspire his own career, he feels it can open the door for a more diverse sport moving forward.

“Seeing people like you doing big things at a high stage — at something you want to do — truly does give you motivation and inspire you,” Scott said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer. “I felt it. I watched Bubba and was like, ‘Oh my gosh. I just want to do that.’ If he could do it, I know I could do it.

“The seat I’m sitting in right now at Rev Racing, he probably has sat in the same seat. So, knowing that I’m kind of on that path that he was on, and he did it, why can’t I? Why can’t two million kids behind me do the same thing?”

All in the family for Lavar Scott

Scott’s grandfather, Wayne, started micro sprint racing at a young age and always had an interest in cars. He opened an automotive repair and maintenance business in Carneys Point in 1978, and his love for racing was embraced by his family — including Lavar’s mother, who has an NHRA license, in addition to many of his aunts and uncles.

At age 5, Lavar Scott joined his older brother racing dirt quarter midgets at Blackbird Quarter Midget Racetrack in Delaware, across the Delaware River from his South Jersey hometown.

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