- american rallycross driver gray leadbetter teamed up with a local video production crew in lexington, north carolina, to hand out sweet bites to first responders.
- she did so in a dodge challenger 392 hemi scat pack, which of course makes good donuts of its own.
- masks and a social-distancing spatula were involved.
if there are two things that go well together, it's cops and rotating doughnuts. wait, hold on. that's not right. what we mean is that in the right situations, police officers may not be bothered if you put some black circles on pavement. and one of those situations is if you're a young racer who’s delivering doughnuts during a pandemic.
like for example gray leadbetter, who recently took a spin in a dodge challenger 392 hemi scat pack around lexington, north carolina, to hand out sweet treats from the red donut shop, the only one in town. the doughnuts were delivered to "many deserving first responders and law enforcement" in and around lexington, leadbetter wrote on her youtube video post about the deliveries. stops were made at the lexington police department, the north carolina state highway patrol, the davidson county sheriff, and the novant health facility in lexington, among other places.
"we took the necessary precautions to make safe deliveries and practice social distancing, and i have to admit, balancing a full box of donuts on a huge spatula and extending it six feet is way harder than it looks," she wrote. "happy to report i only dropped a couple, and had a ton of fun in the process."
the day's calorie-bomb deliveries were set into motion by local filmmaker landon grant, who said in a statement that he heard the red donut shop was struggling during the covid-19 pandemic and thought participating in some deliveries would be a good way to help. grant had previously filmed leadbetter driving and spinning out, so he asked her to join.
filming the car doing donuts took place in a private parking lot early in the morning (but no footage is included in the published one-minute video about the deliveries. you can see her spin out in the facebook video above instead). leadbetter, who is just 15, might be a professional racer, but she only has a learner's permit for public roads. nevertheless, teenagers are teenagers, and at least one officer was apparently charmed enough by the confections to overlook any potential questionable actions. according to people involved in the deliveries, "it is possible that some lucky private citizens might have been treated to a discreet burnout here or there. however, one law enforcement officer did mention that if gray happened to do a burnout, he 'wouldn't see it.' "
leadbetter signed with dreyer & reinbold racing last year to compete in the american rallycross series, where she ended up in fifth place. she trains with former indy 500 champion buddy rice.