Joron Horton at work atop his Warrior Race Car as Mike Nuchols and other crew members look on.
Jordon Horton has put together a very successful season to this point racing in the Sportsman division at Tazewell Speedway and other tracks around the east Tennessee region. The Sneedville, Tenn. native has piled up eleven feature wins so far and currently leads the point standings in that class at Tazewell.
“It’s getting better as the year goes on,” Horton said of his 2014 campaign. “I’ve got a lot of help and I’ve got new car owners, Jack Buchanan and Kenny Horton. We got in with Warrior Race Cars and Mike(Nuchols) and Sanford(Goddard) have been helping us a lot. Hopefully we’re just getting a good stepping stone here and we’ll be able to move forward from here on out.”
Horton made a change several weeks ago to a Warrior chassis powered by an Eagle Racing Engine after having success in another ride throughout the first half of the year. The young wheelman believes that the move will benefit his career in the long run.
“I didn’t have a falling out or anything with my other car owner, but the guys that I drive for now, I feel like can take me a little farther,” Horton explained. “They’ve got a little more resources to foot the bills to get me where I need to go. I wanted to go with Warrior because I knew when I got the car from them that I could get the help as far as setting it up. And I wanted to go with Eagle Race Engines because Cory and Mike(Hedgecock) are good about helping us with our motors. Since we went this way, we’ve got nothing but help from everybody. I’ve got a lot of people to thank.”
Horton about to take to the track in his Warrior Race Car.
Horton has shown diversity this season. Despite racing mostly on the high bans of Tazewell Speedway, he has also earned victories at two other facilities in 2014.
“I’ve won at three different tracks this year but it seems like Tazewell gets harder and harder to win at,” the driver declared. “The competition here is a lot harder. We went to Smoky Mountain and set on the pole and won the race. I’ve also won two times at 411. But it’s never easy no matter where you go. I’m going to try to win the points here at Tazewell this season. Hopefully next year we might travel a little more and to a few more places, wherever they’re paying the most money.”
But Horton is not in too big of a hurry to move up. For now, he’s content to keep learning and growing as a driver in the Sportsman class, but changes could be coming later next season if all goes to plan.
“We’re going to stay with the Sportsman class for right now,” he said. “We’ve been talking about it and if we do step up, we’d probably go to NeSmith. We’re going to start out next year in Sportsman. But look out, we might jump up into NeSmith or something like that.”
