Local Cancer Survivor Scott Lagasse Jr. Finds Success in NASCAR

St. Augustine’s own Scott Lagasse Jr. faced his toughest opponent off the track, now he’s racing to raise awareness.

Life feels untouchable at 200 miles per hour. For Scott Lagasse Jr., speed has always been a language, one he learned growing up in St. Augustine, racing on local tracks before graduating from St. Joseph Academy and Flagler College and building a professional career in NASCAR and the Trans Am Series. Around here, he’s more than a driver. He’s a hometown success story, a familiar face, a figurehead of determination.

But in early 2015, the race changed. Just weeks after his 34th birthday, Scott had finished third at Daytona and was training for his first triathlon, logging 15-hour workout weeks. He was in peak condition. Strong. Focused. “Invincible,” as he would later describe it. Except for one small thing — a persistent pressure low in his abdomen. He could have ignored it. Many people do. Instead, he listened. A colonoscopy revealed colon cancer, a diagnosis that blindsided a young athlete in the best shape of his life. Colorectal cancer remains the second deadliest cancer in the United States and it does not discriminate by fitness level or profession. Within two weeks, Scott was in surgery. Six weeks later, he was back behind the wheel, finishing eighth at Kansas Speedway, not because cancer wasn’t serious, but because it was caught early.

Today, Scott uses his platform to champion screening and prevention through his initiative, Screen Your Machine™, urging others to pay attention to warning signs and begin regular screenings at age 45, or earlier for those with a family history. Strength, he has learned, isn’t just about horsepower. It’s about humility. It’s about acting quickly. It’s about protecting the people who depend on you. In racing, timing is everything. In life, it can be the difference between catching something early—or not at all.