Sabrina Kohrt is not an ordinary athlete.
Sophomore Sabrina Kohrt continues with volleyball and other passions. Photo by Caitlin Rodgers
Sophomore Sabrina Kohrt is of the athletic type; what might catch one’s eye is her interest in drag racing, but she is involved in soccer and volleyball aswell.
Sabrina began playing volleyball at the age of seven. “My brother was a coach for volleyball and he got me into it,” said Sabrina, who began playing club volleyball when she was in sixth grade. She has played for multiple club teams, including Colorado Volleyball Association, Denver Volleyball, and Performance. She is currently playing for Momentum 16 for the first year.
Last year, Sabrina was one of three freshmen to make Varsity for the Thomas Jefferson Volleyball Team. “I was really excited to play at a really high level of volleyball,” said Sabrina, she currently plays setter, but is transitioning into a defensive specialist. “The best part of the TJ Volleyball Team is that we are all a family, and I love that. I also like that the coaches are great because they are really hard on us, but they know our limits and expect a lot from us, which helps us get better.”
Junior Captain, Celeste Henderson, described Sabrina as a great teammate. “She is really dedicated and supportive of the team and is really hard-working. She always has a positive attitude and tries to pick the team up when we’re down,” said Henderson, who adds that Sabrina has changed as an athlete since her freshman year. “She has definitely become more vocal, outgoing and has become a great leader,” claimed Henderson.
Sabrina believes that volleyball is a great team sport. She says that there aren’t a lot of sports out there that give an athlete a second and third chance at a match. “In volleyball you get three sets and you could have a really bad game and lose the first set and then start over and play two more sets that you could win.”
Sabrina describes the atmosphere when she plays as exciting, loud, and even giddy. “The crowd definitely gets me pumped. It’s sometimes nerve-racking, but the butterflies always go away after the first play,” she explained.
Sabrina says that while playing a sport there are always memorable moments. “My favorite part of volleyball is when there is a really close game and we beat the team knowing they were actually better than us,” said Sabrina, who remembers games from last year such as Standley Lake and Roosevelt, and Green Mountain from this year. “Standley Lake was a really good team and it was a tough game, but even though we lost, we played to their level. When we played Roosevelt at Districts, we were all nervous because we knew that if we wanted to move on to Regionals, we would have to win the game,” Sabrina reflected. “We played with such intensity, knowing that we had everything to lose.” This year, when TJ played Green Mountain, she thought that the Rams would be a lot better than they were.
Off the court, Henderson sees Sabrina as a good person. “She is really nice, a good student, friendly, and really funny,” said Henderson. “She is a wonderful, beautiful young lady who will make it far in life.”
Last year, Sabrina also started back up with soccer. She hadn’t played since she was little, and she said she wanted to get back into it. “I had stopped because I was getting more involved with volleyball,” said Sabrina. “It’s a lot of fun to play with my friends.” Since she only played when she was a child, Sabrina explained that playing as a teenager was different. “It’s a different perspective of a sport,” she stated. “When you are a kid, you are just playing for fun, but as a teenager, it gets more serious.”
From the court to the field, and now on to the speedway. Since she was eight years old, Sabrina has been drag racing. She explained that her dad had been racing for years and he got her brother into racing, who in turn got her into racing. “It’s been in the family for a very long time,” Sabrina exclaimed, who said she was actually very nervous for her first time racing. “I was really anxious to see how I would do and to finally understand why my brother and my dad enjoy drag racing so much.”
She usually competes at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colorado, but she also races at local tracks in Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska. Of all the locations, Sabrina says her favorite place to race is Bandimere because it is a nationally ranked track with a nice facility. She also says it also looks very professional.
Every other weekend from May to September is when the races take place. If one wins a round, they get points. At the end of the season, whoever has earned the most points is the track champion. Competitors will race down a straight 8th of a mile strip. The two cars, side by side, will leave off of a “Christmas Tree,” which allows the driver to know when they can take off. The “Christmas Tree” is a column of lights for each driver. It looks like a traffic light, but it has one blue light, three yellow, one green, and one red light. The one who crosses the finish line first will become the victor.
Sabrina can only compete within her class of about 40, which is “Junior Dragster 3,” which consists of 13-17-year-olds with specific racing categories, such as how fast the car runs, the weight of the car, and the prediction of how fast the car will go (or dial in). Once Sabrina gets her license to drive, she will be able to be in other classes. She says she will probably go into High School Drags, but that is not the only class in which she will be able to participate. There are many other classes, but which one she goes into depends on the specifications. Sabrina’s car has a dial in time of 7.90 second, which means that her car will take less than eight seconds to get to the finish line from the start line. In her class, the car can’t run faster than 7.65 seconds, or 85 miles per hour. Even if a racer runs 85.2 mph, they will be disqualified. “You can run 85 mph exactly, but nothing past that speed,” explained Sabrina.
Sabrina feels as though drag racing is misunderstood and that there are more rules and regulations than people think. “The driver and the crew chief have to be in sync, in that the driver has to make quick decisions, and the crew chief has to have the accurate dial in time,” explained Sabrina.
“The best part of drag racing is that because there are a lot more ways to lose, it is really rewarding with you win, knowing that there were a lot more things going against you than for you,” said Sabrina.
