Column By: ADAM CORNELL / RPW – LAFARGEVILLE, NY – Friday night, as the heat spread across the North Country of New York, a fire was burning in Jordan Kelly of Black River, NY as he rolled into Can-Am Speedway hoping for a good finish in the heats and maybe score his second podium finish for the season on the tenth night of Whitesboro Plow Shop DIRTcar 358 modified racing at the track.
Kelly has had some good finishes at Can-Am speedway in this, his rookie season in the 358 Modified class. His best was back in May when he took third place, finishing behind Tim Fuller and Jeff Sykes on that early season night.
Kelly wasn’t the fastest on the track through the preliminary qualifying hot laps, Friday night, tracking at 11th. Then he fell into the heat with points leader Tim Fuller and Can-Am regular top finisher, Billy Dunn. Kelly started second in his heat, but slid back a position, finishing third. It looked like it was going to be another night of learning in his rookie year.
As the starting positions were shuffled, Kelly found himself beginning the feature on the front line, rolling out second on the outside of pole setter, Cameron Black. Twenty other drivers started the feature behind Kelly, including all of the previous winners so far in 2022.
When the green flag unfurled over the track, Kelly rode into turn one hot on the accelerator. He powered through turn two a car length ahead of Black and drove out ahead of the field quickly.
While Black battled Scott Webb for second position, acting as a two-car blockade for the rest of the field, Kelly sprinted ahead by six car lengths. After Webb had passed up Black, he found himself focused on battling Shaun Shaw who was also seeking his first victory in the 358 class. Once again, the battle for second took up their attention while Kelly drove it hard towards open track.
By lap 13 Kelly started to get entangled with lapped traffic. No cautions in the race meant that the field was now stretched out all around the clay oval. Kelly weaved through the traffic and cleared his way through, getting himself back to open racetrack unscathed.
Behind him Shaun Shaw was facing the same obstacle course of lapped traffic, emerging from the fracas even further behind than when the top two cars entered.
With less than ten laps remaining, Billy Dunn was cruising through the field, working his way up to a top position. Dunn has notoriously been clever at taking advantage of late-race cautions to leap-frog his way into a lead in the final laps and steal a victory. Kelly would need green flag racing through the duration of the race to have a chance to score his first win in the 358s.
Everything went Kelly’s way over the final laps.
Shaw seemed content at second position, while Dunn could not muster the speed to get past Shaw and challenge for the lead. Kelly crossed the finish line in first place for the first time in his young 358 modified career.
“I was pretty much just trying to block the whole track all I could,” Kelly said from victory lane, in his plain fire suit, wearing a grin ear to ear. “I wasn’t sure how close the person behind me was, so I was just trying my hardest to get a podium finish.”
Kelly works for his dad at MK Construction, the major sponsor of his stark black number 24 car. Kelly himself has a thin build, a shock of red hair and wears glasses. He looks like he would feel just as at home behind a computer keyboard as he would a racecar, but there is pure race car fuel pumping through his veins.
During his short number of years in the Sportsman class he notched several wins. After his success at that level, he decided 2022 was the year to move up with the big boys in the 358 mods. With the win Friday night, Kelly clawed his way into 9th position for points. It would take a miracle end to the season for him to have a chance at a track championship title, but that’s not what this first season in the 358s is all about.
Moving up a class is about just finding a way to compete and with his dominating victory Friday night, Kelly has made a statement that he is here to race.
Kelly started racing karts at age 6, moving up to four-cylinders when he was just 12 years old. The next season, while still at the age of twelve, he ran in the Limited Sportsman Modified class. He stayed in the Limited Sportsman Mods for two years before moving up to the DIRTcar Sportsman Modifieds, running in that class for four years.
If you’re keeping track, as he competes in his first year of DIRTcar 358 Modifieds, Kelly is just eighteen years old.
Kelly is living the life, winning races and dating Miss Adirondack, Ashlyn Hilts. Is Jordan Kelly a legend in the making? Only time and more racing will tell, but every legend has their first win. For Jordan Kelly his first came on a hot night in late July. Now it’s onward and upward for the young driver.
Kelly will return to the track at Can-Am Speedway, Friday July 29th to try to add another victory to his impressive inaugural 358 modified season.