2009 Newspaper Articles

Lauren Edgerton wears a yellow lug nut on a chain around her neck. The hardware came from the car of her favorite NASCAR circuit

driver Jeff Gordon, whose number she also has on a small decal in the back left window of her personal car, and whose number is painted on the doors of her No. 24 blue Chevy Cavalier U-Car. Gordon achieved fame and success on the track while maintaining a clean-cut, good-guy persona – a perfect parallel to the driver who’s bringing the No. 24 back to the smaller tracks.

During driver’s meetings at Southside Speedway, Edgerton stands near the middle of the pack, arms folded, weight on one hip, listening quietly to instructions. She checks in as required and rarely voices a complaint. The young driver doesn’t need attention off the track; she’s getting plenty of notice on the track.

Because of inversion rules which put point leaders near the back of the pack at the start, Edgerton normally has 25-30 laps to work her way to the top during Friday night races. It rarely takes her that long to enter the top 10, however. Never more aggressive than she has to be, Edgerton – who started racing in go-karts at a private dirt track - methodically picks off the competition, slipping higher and higher into the pack and forcing leaders to watch for her.

“At Southside, you kind of have to be aggressive because you have to get through the field in 25 laps and they invert the top 20 in points, so depending on where you are, that can be rough; and you can’t really take your time,” Edgerton said.

She’s been running at Southside Speedway since 2007, when she participated in six races. She only finished higher than 16th once, and that was a first-place finish on Aug. 31 of that year. In the off-season, Edgerton and her dad rebuilt the car, added a second one – a black Cavalier that they run mostly at other tracks – and came back with a vengeance in the 2008 season. Edgerton ran a full season and only finished outside of the top 10 three times. She picked up four top-five finishes, including another win, and finished sixth in final point standings. This year she has seven top-10 finishes to her credit and took the second spot earlier in the season. She is eighth in points heading into tomorrow night’s season finale. She says the year at Southside has been a little disappointing.

“I haven’t had as much success at Southside as I would have liked,” Edgerton said. “We’ve had some back luck with spinning into walls and the motor was kind of down on power because we didn’t have time to rebuild it in the off season.”