Jody Lavender will make the long trip to the Iowa Speedway this weekend to compete in the NASCAR Camping World East Series race on Sunday, May 18th.

TV coverage will be live on the HDNET Channel beginning at 5 pm EDT. A tape delayed broadcast will be on the Speed Channel on Tuesday, May 27th at 1 pm EDT.

The race will be a combination race with both the East and West Series drivers competing. Last year’s race was won by young Joey Logano over Kevin Harvick. Since there will be no Sprint cup race, NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne is expected to race also. The series is a development series for NASCAR and has teams from Joe Gibbs, Richard Childress, Dale Earnhardt Inc, and Ken Schrader competing in every race.

Jody said, “We definitely have some strong competition in this series but we have a good team and a competitive car and it will give us a chance to show how good we are.” In Jody’s last race, he finished 6th after running most of the race with brake problems. Jody drives for the JBR Racing team from Maine owned by Jimmy Burgess.

Jody said, “We have one of the hardest working teams I have ever seen. Crew chief Todd Graffam is the leader and this week Steve Bird “Birdie” who has helped us most in the past years will be there to add his expertise.”

For more information, go to www.jodylavender.com or www.eastseries.com.