RINCON — After making mostly left turns for more than a decade, Jordan Feider will eventually reach a fork in her life’s road.

The 20-year-old race car driver is working toward a nursing degree, meaning career obligations will likely cut into her time behind the wheel at dirt tracks across southeast Georgia.

“I hope I can keep racing,” Feider said. “We’re just going to have to see how it works out. I would like to continue doing it for the rest of my life.”

A 2016 South Effingham High School graduate, Feider has been juggling her nursing studies and racing since January. She is enrolled at the Georgia Southern-Armstrong Campus.

“I could have gone off to other places but I wanted to still be able to race throughout my college career,” she said.

A yellow flag of sorts went up shortly after Feider’s college career began.

“It’s been tough, an eye opener, because I’ve always been a smart kid,” she said. “(Learning) used to kind of come naturally but now I’m really having to learn how to study and focus on my school work instead of my race car.”

Feider, who lives near Eden, has raced competitively since she was eight years old. She started at Pineora Kartway where she won multiple go-kart events.

At 13, Feider advanced to stock cars after she received a four-cylinder Mini-Stock Mustang for her birthday. She made another leap three years later when Dennis Morris, her crew chief and grandfather, gave her a Late Model for her 16th birthday.

“That’s the highest division you can go on dirt here locally,” Feider said.

Racing is in Feider’s blood. Her grandfather is a former racer but her need for speed goes much deeper.

“I’m actually a third-generation female driver in the family” Feider said. “My mom (April Annas) raced — and she won championships out there at Oglethorpe (Raceway in Savannah) — and my grandma, my Nanny, Kim Morris, was really bad to the bone. She won tons of races out there.

“She won (the race) or she wrecked (her car) because she wasn’t taking second as an option.”

One of Feider’s biggest fans — and competitors — is her boyfriend, Branden Yawn. One of her cousins is a racer, too.

“It’s all just a family thing,” Feider said. “We go out every weekend, we travel, we race on Saturdays and get home in the wee hours to go to church on Sundays. It’s very busy and we put a lot of work into it during the week.”

Feider’s season starts in February and runs through November.

“We run a lot all the time,” she said. “It’s just non-stop. I don’t know what I’d do without racing, probably go to the beach a lot more — or fishing.

“I really don’t know.”

See the July 11 edition of the Effingham Herald for more details.