The following article originally appeared in the 2009 Winter issue of Hometown Magazine.
During the weekdays, Lavon Lashley has to move quickly. Working as a clamp truck driver for the Sheet Finishing division of International Paper, he’s responsible for keeping five machines supplied with 5,000 pound-plus paper rolls, eight hours a day, five days a week.
In his spare time, he likes to move even faster. When not spending time with his family— daughters, Diamond Maxwell and Latoya Lashley, son, Lavon, Jr. and wife, Sendy—Lavon’s hobby is to build and race dragster-type cars. “When I was young, my uncle was always working on cars. My dad used to take me down to the garage and we’d hang out with the other guys. Back then, I always said when I get older I want to build a race car.”
And that’s what he’s been doing for the last 10 years. Lavon is currently tuning up and dialing in his latest speedster. “I just built a new car a couple of years ago. I had a car before this one, but this one is a whole lot faster. It’ll run in the low 9s for the quarter mile at 148 miles per hour. And it typically takes some time to get used to that much more power. You don’t just get in and learn to handle it over night. It’s going to take some time to get used to. So I didn’t participate in the Grudge Matches this year, but next year I will.”
According to Lavon, “Grudge Matches” are contests against friends or associates that aren’t for fame or glory—they’re basically for bragging rights. “I normally go up to the Virginia Motor Sport Park in Dinwiddie just to test my car out and see what it’ll do. The raceway gives everyone a chance to test and tool their vehicles, then they open the track up to “eliminations”—where you can race against all the other people who are there. Sometime I get into it and sometimes I don’t. But they also have a thing they call Grudge Matches where you can pick who you want to race against and it’s just a competition between you and that other person. Three of my buddies have race cars. It’s kind of an ego thing—sometimes we get into this groove and get to talking, and we’ve got something to prove to each other. So we’ll enter the Grudge Matches to see who really gets to do the bragging.”
When he’s not racing, Lavon is a member of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Franklin where he was selected for the Deacon Board two years ago and more recently selected as the assistant superintendent for the church’s Sunday School. “Christ is first in my life,” says Lavon. “I put him before everything—and everything else just falls into place.”
With all the activities going on in Lavon’s life, it’s hard to believe he has any spare time. But in the free moments that he does have, he enjoys doing minor carpentry work on his investment properties. “Through my dealings with the Bronco, I’ve been involved with buying several real estate properties. Bronco has always been really great in getting me the loans I need and also with guiding me as far as business decision on things I should do and things I shouldn’t do. Any time I need anything, I know I can always go in and have someone there to sit down with me to go over my questions and concerns. They’ve been really good to me.”
