GREEN COVE SPRINGS - For Heather Highhouse, the beauty of allowing her two children; Savannah and Will, to drive down a drag strip at 100-200 miles per hour is the blackmail aspect of "So you don't want to take the garbage out?"
"It does have its advantages," said Heather Highhouse, the team mom, strategist, nutritionist and track photographer for her two very fast kids; 14-year-old Savannah, a Clay High freshman, and Will, 18, about to graduate Clay High senior. "Though I kid about that as part of them running dragsters, I think they are both pretty good kids and understand that they have earned their ability to compete."
For Savannah Highhouse, a 14-year-old (15 in August) freshman catcher and outfield player on the Clay High softball team who is without an automobile driver's license yet, the draw to racing dragsters; which started at 10 years old, came with hanging out at the track while Dad was racing muscle cars down the track.
Heather Highhouse recalls going to the track with her dad as a childhood weekend adventure.
"I grew up at the track with my dad who raced a 1968 GTO," said Heather Highhouse. "I grew up from six weeks old at the track. Bill and I met when he was like 20 years old when he raced with a 1980 Camaro. I married into the race scene, but we built the family first."
Where the kids got involved was when Bill got the itch to race again when Savannah was about nine years old.
"I was okay with the dragster idea," said Heather Highhouse, noting husband Bill runs and is part owner of First Coast Electric to finance the adventures. "It was a passion of the family."
For Savannah Highhouse, who had a game ball from the Blue Devils come from behind win over Ponte Vedra, the thrill of anticipating a home run is about as nerve-racking as awaiting the green light on the track for her race start.
"I had to get an NHRA (National Hod Rod Association) physical to get an NHRA license," said Savannah Highhouse. "They make sure I'm physically fit to drive the dragster. My dad came to Lake Asbury Elementary to take me and Will with him to buy a dragster. I said, 'cool'."
With softball her main passion at the time, when she was eight, Savannah watched and fell in love with the sport.
"I was eight when we got the dragster and it took me a year to decide that I wanted to race them," said Savannah Highhouse, who raced a two-day bracket race at the Gainesville Dragway on Saturday and Sunday, May 18-19 with recent excursions to Las Vegas and Bristol, TN. "I was on a travel softball team and that took much of the weekend. I had to choose."
In her racing career thus far, recently, Savannah Highhouse has climbed to a top five rankings in the United States including a recent best appearing junior dragster award plus some winners checks.
"I got a new car in the works that is being sandblasted and built," said Savannah Highhouse. "I have to know a lot about the weather, the tire pressures, the chains, the clutch and the reactions. The only thing I don't do is start the engine. My dad does that outside the car."
The parallels of drag racing and softball are unique for Savannah with her first "almost" home run giving her the same adrenaline rush at home plate as waiting for the green light on the start strip.
"As soon as I get in my car, I get in my zone," said Savannah Highhouse. "Just before I'm ready to go, after prestage and my tire burnout, I sit in my car and pray a little. I get a fist pump from my brother and then I'm ready to go."
In the Ponte Vedra game where she got the game ball for her five runs batted in, Savannah Highhouse nearly got her first high school home run.
"It was just as intense when I got in the batter's box as waiting for the green light," said Savannah Highhouse, who put five runs across with two doubles and nearly hit the dinger in the 9-4 win. "Coach Lewis (Clay softball coach Matt Lewis) said he never gives game balls to hitters, but that was quite the night for me."