Behind The Wheel - #14 - Jamie Flora
Professional motocross racer to novice drag racer with a lot of wins under her belt, meet Jamie Flora. From Bowling Green, Kentucky, she is one half of the husband-and-wife race team, Team Duo. Jamie has been married for 9 years and is raising 3 children and 2 goats together a with her husband Casey Flora. On top of the dynamic duo race team, they also own an HVAC/ refrigeration company and a powdercoating and laser engraving company, PowderUp Coatings. Before entering the world of automotive drag racing, Jamie was a professional motocross racer for 11 years.
Jamie spent her childhood with equestrian hunter jumpers and won multiple championships before getting involved in motocross. Her dad always wanted her to race motocross, so she was stuck on a Warrior ATV and started racing when she was 15. Jamie was very competitive in it and raced many different ATV’s including a Honda 250R, YFZ 450, and LTR 450. She became a sponsored rider and took home the 2001 Carolina State Motocross championship at the age of 15 and at 17, she took home the 2003 ATVA Grand National Championship for the Women’s B class. She reflected on winning her 2003 championship, “I missed my prom, senior skip day, and high school graduation to chase my dream and be the first girl to win the championship and I did it!”. Jamie has always chased adrenaline also telling me for her 16th birthday she went skydiving without an instructor and jumped out of a plane at 4,500 feet with only her dad, cousin, and a friend!
Finding her passion in drag racing wasn’t hard once she finally took a vehicle down the dragstrip. “Casey told me to go down the track one time in my F-250. I made a pass at 86MPH and told him I wanted to go down in his car and went 9’s”, Jamie told me, “I told him I wanted my own car, I’m not sharing, so in April of 2019 I got my car”. That car is a 2019 Mustang GT that is currently modified with headers, Borla exhaust, injectors, aerospace brakes, boost-a-pump, converter, wheels and tires, half-shafts, driveshaft, and runs on e-85. She has plans to upgrade for the 2022 season with UPR suspension, RC Component wheels, a new tune from Li Tuning, and RaceQuip safety gear and equipment. Jamie’s fastest pass so far in her 2019 Mustang has been in the high 10’s. She has since had a personal fastest pass of 9.15 at 147MPH at the Frank Holly drag school where she received her NHRA license.
Jamie looks up to her husband when it comes to drag racing. “He’s good at everything he does and succeeds so I trust what he has to say. He’s my best friend and he’s why I am where I am today. I listen to him on the racetrack because he wouldn’t steer me wrong. That’s the ONLY time I’ll listen to him”, she told me jokingly. She finds her number one supporter at the track to be her husband and her daughter Jase. She got involved in the class because of her husband, “I was running the 11.0 class, Casey told me I should just run in it because I have a good bracket car”, and she has found herself in the class multiple times since. Jamie has competed in 7 Women & Wheels class races where she took home 3 1st place wins, 3 split-pot wins, and one loss.
Jamie’s favorite memory happened to be at the event in her hometown, Bowling Green, Kentucky, “My first 1st place win was in Kentucky. I set three goals that weekend, to win a race, sweep a weekend with my husband, and get in the 10’s. We did it all”. Sportsmanship is something that comes easy to Jamie, and you will very often see her in the lanes talking to other women and always willing to give advice, “Had the girls I looked up to in motocross not helped me, I wouldn’t have gotten where I was”, so Jamie now takes the time to eagerly help anyone that comes her way. Her advice to any new-comer would be, “Everyone has to do something for the first time. My first time down the track was in an F-250. It doesn’t matter who’s around you or who’s watching because everyone has started from ground one. Get down the track for the first time, feel it, and then figure out what you can work on”.
For Jamie, Women & Wheels has given her the ability to take home her first win, but she sees what it has also given other women, “I feel like this class is opening up the door for all women to race. You can take daily drivers, racecars, all walks of life of a vehicle and race in this class. Any experience has a chance to win, regardless of what car you have. Sophie has taken a lot of girls’ dreams and made them real. It’s given a good environment full of good women that are willing to help each other grow, learn, and meet lifelong friends”.
Jamie has found passion in not only racing but helping other women that come her way. Her sportsmanship reflects in her friendships and wins, and she proves that you don’t have to have grown up drag racing to be competitive in the class.
You can find Jamie @ powderupcoatings on IG.