Track Amanda Suter’s and Katja Jourdan’s progress online

The Daily News, a Longview, Wash., newspaper that covers the hometown of Jacksonville University aviation student Amanda Suter, spotlights Suter and fellow JU student Katja Jourdan’s participation in the 2013 Air Race Classic in its Tuesday, June 18 edition.

Here’s an excerpt:

Racing motorcycles isn’t enough anymore for former Winlock High School valedictorian Amanda Suter — now she’s taking to the skies.

The 22-year-old U.S. Naval officer-in-training will compete in the 2013 Air Race Classic — a three-day, 2,128-mile race that starts Tuesday in Pasco, Wash., and ends Friday in Fayetteville, Ark. The race is an annual all-female-pilot event in which competitors try to beat their own best speed by the biggest margin (based on a timed handicap flight) in the plane of their choice.

Suter and teammate Katja Jourdan, a fellow student at Jacksonville University in Florida, will fly together as pilot and co-pilot in a borrowed Cirrus SR20. The single-engine, low-wing plane seats four and has a glass cockpit.

The duo will be flying sixth out of 47 teams competing for the $5,000 first prize, $2,000 second prize and $2,000 third prize. Prizes also will be awarded for each leg of the race, which dates back to 1929, when female pilots weren’t allowed to race against men.

…

“It’s really exciting just getting this opportunity to be able to log all these free flight hours as well as just the experience in general. I can’t think of any other time I would do something like this,” said Suter, who will become a Naval officer in May after graduating college, and then she’ll attend Naval flight school.

The race got under way Tuesday. Click here to track the JU students’ (Class Racer Team #06) progress online. Click here to learn more on the Facebook page created for the JU students’ adventure. Click here to read profiles of Suter and Jourdan on the “Flight to Success” aviation blog.