Warrensburg woman races dirt-track cars

MALTA | Warrensburg High School graduate Jordan Hill, 22, paused as she tightened a lug nut on her dirt-track race car just prior to competing July 14 at Albany-Saratoga Speedway in Malta. Pausing for a moment after waving to one of her fans, she offered her thoughts about competing in dirt-track racing since she turned six years old. Starting when she was four years old, she followed her father Tim Hill around the northeast, watching him compete in racing vehicles, and days after her sixth birthday, she began driving her own race car — a go-kart. "When I was a young kid, I went with my dad to his races, and I fell in love with the thrill and excitement of racing," she said. "I like to dodge in and out between other cars on the track — it gets hectic out there — you really have to have good reflexes." Competing in various age-related classes on asphalt and dirt tracks as well as indoors around the northeast U.S., Hill has won many championships so far during her career — so many that she recently decided to discard many of her trophies. Between 2012 and 2016 or so, she won five successive championships. Hill gained her expertise in the sport by racing nearly every weekend over her 17 years of competition, moving up through a half-dozen levels of competition in go-kart racing, including the adult level for a number of years. Just recently, she started racing a full-size dirt-track race car likely weighing about 2,400 pounds, powered by a 350-horsepower Chevy engine. Through Hill's racing career, she's experienced mishaps, which represent risks of the sport: she's been in multiple collisions, some of which have flipped her go-cart, but she's escaped unscathed. Once when Hill was 12 or so, she was forced sideways by another racer, and she smashed into a fence and was sent to the hospital by race authorities, she said. "I wasn't hurt too bad, they were just being cautious," Hill said. On July 14, she was passing a competitor and two other racers boxed her in, and her race car collided with another. The following day, she was at home in her father's garage, and the two of them were stripping the race car of crunched sheet metal and inspecting the suspension and steering gear for potential damage. Her father, a skilled mechanic, works in that role for the town of Lake George Highway Department. He serves as Jordan's chief mechanic, aided by pit crew members Larry Corlew, Larry Lawler, John McEachron, Bryan Rounds, Rob and Kyle Lanfear, and a man known as "Slugger." Among her sponsors are Anderson & Son Specialty Welding, Frank Witz Roofing of Lake George, Rounds Paving & Excavation and Relia-Tech Auto Services. When she started racing, it was quite rare for a girl to be competing. In recent years, female race car drivers have joined the sport, but still represent a small minority. Of the 120 drivers or so competing July 14 at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, there were merely a half-dozen females behind the wheel over all the many races held that evening. She said she loves dirt-track racing, although it means clods of dirt thrown up in your path and clouds of dust obscuring your vision as you charge around an oval track, dodging in and out between other racers. "When you're about the only female out there on the track, it feels kinda nice," she said. "A lot of people think if you're a girl you can't do it, but I love proving they're wrong."

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Warrensburg woman races dirt-track cars

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