VCU student aces stock-car racing

Twenty-year-old Lauren Edgerton makes the jump to the Modified class at Southside Speedway next year. Lisa Billings/Chesterfield Observer Lauren Edgerton, 20, is on the fast track to success, in more ways than one.

The Chesterfield resident is nearing May graduation from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in mechanical engineering.

She’s already earned a sheepskin, of sorts, in stock-car racing, having graduated from UCars to Modifieds. The daughter of Rusty and Deborah Edgerton of Matoaca won nine of 16 features this past season to grab the U-Car title at Shenandoah Speedway near Elkton. She competed in a black and blue Chevy Cavalier.

At the speedway’s annual banquet in Harrisonburg, she added the Driver of the Year and Sportsmanship trophies, determined by the votes of drivers and officials.

“I had no idea, especially when you consider all the different divisions, and the fact that I wasn’t local,” she said of her awards.

This was Edgerton’s fourth-year of stock racing, but her first at Shenandoah. In the past she raced at her home track, Southside Speedway, on Friday nights.

She chose Shenandoah because it runs Saturday nights and didn’t conflict with an internship she was completing at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren.

Edgerton plans to return to Southside in 2011 in the faster-paced Modified Division. She has already purchased a Modified racer from a local driving team.

Moving to Modifieds from U-Cars is a giant leap forward. Modifieds are larger cars with more powerful engines and considered a featured attraction. The smaller U-Cars, limited to four cylinders, make up the undercard, along with Grand Stocks and Street Stocks.

Edgerton is hoping a diploma in mechanical engineering will boost her racing career.

“That’s one of the reasons why I picked a major kind of on the high end of the salary scale,” she said. “Racing is my life, and I’m hoping to finance my racing through the money I make with my degree.”

Edgerton was home-schooled until age 16, when she began taking credit courses at John Tyler Community College and Richard Bland Junior College.

She dabbled in ballet, karate and soccer as a young girl but was drawn to racing through her dad, who competed in go-karts at an unsanctioned track in western Chesterfield.

“At first I started tagging along with dad,” she said. “Then he decided I was better at it than [he was], so I started driving…I became addicted to it.”

A quick learner, she had 16 top-three finishes in her karting career.

Edgerton debuted at Southside in 2007 and won her first race on Aug. 31, 2007, leading flag-to-flag in her U-Car (four-cylinder division). She had two Southside victories and 10 top-five finishes in 2008; she added 26 top-five runs in 2009 – all with U-Cars.

Both in her engineering major and at the raceway, she’s always a female minority. She admits her idea of a social life is “calling up other drivers to see if they need any help working on their cars.” There hasn’t been much time for a stereotypical carefree college life.

“The guys at school are shocked when they hear I race,” she said. “And most of the other drivers are older – a lot older – and barely tolerate me. Anyway, I don’t think it would be too good an idea to date the guys you’re racing.”

Edgerton is a tomboy by nature – “I don’t like to shop, and I don’t wear makeup,” she says – but she makes one concession regarding jewelry. She never leaves home without a lug-nut necklace baring the name of her favorite driver, Jeff Gordon.

A comparison she avoids is with Indy-style driver Danica Patrick, a media darling and endorsement queen.

“People always ask how I feel about Danica,” said Edgerton. “I want to be judged by my driving ability, rather than looks and just being a girl.”