Jamie Chadwick and Sara Price – 2 Women hitting their marks in America’s Motorsport. Both Women are competing in 2023 season in USA, each gaining valuable knowledge, race-skills in new disciplines to further their racing career pathways for the years ahead. What would seem as next step up the career ladder, Jamie and Sara know these decisions have not been made lightly, given results are make or break for what comes next.
Coming off an extremely successful campaign racing WSeries, Jamie weighed up all possibilities to race 2023 – ticking boxes that would ensure best opportunity to raise her racing profile on the track. Notwithstanding her stellar victories as WSeries Champion in 2019, 2020, and 2022, Chadwick embraced the new opening of competing in 2023 Indy NXT Series in America.
For sure, the learning curve has been challenging, with Jamie admitting results do not reflect her true capabilities behind the wheel of Andretti Autosport No. 28 Dallara. By Round 3 of the season’s 14, Jamie summarized qualifying as ‘making gains but still not able to maximize the new tyres when it grips and gets heavy. Car is fast, and potential is there’.
By Round 4 and 5 in Detroit, the British driver claimed P11 and P16 in Race 1 – 2, acknowledging improvements that had been made enabled progress to be achieved, heading into Round 6 Road America this weekend, July 17 – 18.
Sara Price secured her long-term goal of entry to race 2024 Dakar Rally after winning 2023 Sonora Rally in UTV Pro Stock class. Having made strategic decisions pre-season, Price switched to race Can-Am Maverick T3 vehicle which not only proved a winning combination in Sonora Rally, but also provided Price victory in NORRA Mexican 1000 a few days later.
Winning Sonora proved ultimate prize with automatic berth in 2024 Dakar Rally, as part of the Road to Dakar programme. Sara explains: ‘the Sonora Rally was one for the books and I am honestly still on cloud nine. Getting to Dakar has been a dream of mine since 2015 and this year I decided to put 100% of my focus toward it’.
Clocking up 17 hours, 14:04 seconds to take the win in Sonora Rally – including winning 2 Stages and Prologue – followed by winning 5 day NORRA Rally in total time of 19:51:46, Sara has outshone her ability to transfer race skill set from one vehicle to the next. A talent rare to produce, and even rarer cross disciplines.
Take a look at Sara’s profile. Setting and achieving goals has been part of Sara’s DNA, from competing in X Games, to the ultimate victory as the first woman to win the SCORE International Trophy Truck Championship in 2019, to taking first win in 2022 Extreme E with Kyle LeDuc and Chip Ganessi Racing – Sara remains resilient when facing and overcoming challenges to race.
For certain, both women have pushed goal-posts out each race season, not only to enable the development of their racing careers, but also to enhance their capabilities to achieve goals not immediately in sight. And, that takes courage, self-discipline, and awareness of making decisions for achieving long-term career success in years to come.
Header photo: Jamie Chadwick and Sara Price Image: Teams and MXLink
Words: Sharon Cox.
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