Jordan Driver’s having a landmark season of barrel racing, and she added yet another win to the heap after carrying the WCRA’s Rodeo Corpus Christi surfboard, and a smooth $21,500 out of her week aboard Judge JB Cash.
Driver entered Rodeo Corpus Christi straight into the first two progressive rounds of competition due to her No. 1 standing on the Virtual Rodeo Qualifier leaderboard. From there, she picked up a total of $3,500 between the two go-rounds, and earned an aggregate check en route Saturday night’s Showdown. In the six-man shootout, Driver nailed the unique starting line system and went 14.826 seconds to earn the $18,000 victory purse.
For well-versed barrel racing fans, the top times coming in around 15 seconds all week long in a small arena like Corpus Christi might cause confusion. Unlike traditional barrel racing formats, where the timer starts and stops when a racer crosses the line, RCC employed a drag racing style stoplight system, where the timer counts back from 15, and a barrel racer must stay behind a timer line to avoid penalty until the light itself turns green.
Once the green light appears, the clock begins and will only stop when the barrel racer crosses the score line on the way out of the arena. It mimics the start that will be employed at Kid Rock’s Rodeo, where contestants will go head-to-head and begin their run at the same time.
“I had it figured out by the third round,” Driver said. “I had to really get tuned into the details of it all—making sure I put him in the right spot, making sure I paid attention to the details of it all, then having to think about the run after the start.”
Although TRHeavensIlluminated, the dirty fast red gelding of Driver’s tends to take up the spotlight, Judge JB Cash has proved a valuable asset to Driver’s team in 2025.
“I bought him about a year ago from Quincy Sullivan,” Driver said. “She’d owned him since he was two, and headed and ran barrels on him both. I kind of got the hint that she was going to back off running barrels and sell him, and she’d been kicking our butt at the college rodeos, so I bought him while I was driving out to (CNFR).”
Driver battled against the gelding’s naturally stiff style in the beginning, but sooned figured out how to adapt to his needs.
“I just worked on making the same run every time,” Driver said. “I tried to change him at first, and it just didn’t work. So I just kept studying Quincy’s videos, I put him back in the same bit she used, and I just kept making adjustments to myself from there. It’s helped me as a rider to learn how to adapt with him and figure his style out. He’s been a lot of fun.”
Although a portion of Sullivan’s earnings on “Judge,” may not have made it into QData’s reporting system from the collegiate rodeo scene, Driver’s RCC win puts the gelding at $106,626 in recorded lifetime earnings. Click here to see the full report.
Both of Driver’s geldings will be called upon throughout her busy upcoming week. She’s sitting at the top in the Women’s Rodeo World Championship VRQ leaderboard, meaning she’ll be bouncing around Fort Worth prior to Kid Rock’s Rodeo on Friday, May 16. She’s also slated to hit ProRodeos in between to build up her circuit system count.
“I’ve been trying to ride the high and not make it too hard,” Driver said. “I don’t want to change anything, just keep it simple and go with it, and enjoy these great horses and opportunities.
The recent Tarleton State University graduate credited her family and support system for making her busy schedule and maintenance of multiple top barrel racing horses possible.
