Stockcar racing a family tradition for mother-son Hatch duo

Pictured are Jennifer and Zach Hatch standing beside Zach Hatch’s Legends’ Series stock race car displayed at St. Marys Ford.

By Spencer Seymour

As they gear up for a new racing season, Jennifer and Zach Hatch are grateful for the support they have received from local sponsors, without which they could never afford to pursue their racing passions.

“Without them, we don’t race,” Jennifer Hatch said. “We work regular jobs and we don’t have massive bags of money sitting around. Without that sponsorship, you don’t go to the track, especially when you’re running two cars. We truly can’t say enough about what their support means to us. We couldn’t be any luckier when it comes to our supporters. We truly are very blessed.”

The generous list of sponsors who have supported the mother-and-son duo features several St. Marys businesses including St. Marys Ford, Robson Scrap Metal, Sunset Diner and Red Rock Construction. The car driven by Zach Hatch is owned locally by Kent Robson of Robson Scrap Metal.

Kipp Edwards, owner of St. Marys Ford, is always supportive of the ideas brought by Jennifer Hatch, one of his service advisors at St. Marys Ford, including, most recently, displaying Zach Hatch’s #71 car in front of her desk at the local dealership.

Other sponsors to support the Hatches include PC275 Realty, Finch Construction, Coursey Line Electric, RPM Design, ZH Contracting, Jays Detail Shop, Batten Built Construction, EPIC Racewear, CM Welding and CFFH.

The story of the stock-racing tandem began in Jennifer Hatch’s youth. She described how her passion was jumpstarted very early in her life.

“My dad raced what were then called hobby cars, and were later renamed to Canadian vintage modifieds, so I grew up at the racetrack. I would later run a Canadian vintage modified with my dad on my pit crew, so that was very cooI. I went to Flamboro Speedway for the first time when I was four months old. It just got bred into me a little bit, being there from an early age. I’ve described it as a bug you catch and never get rid of.”

Jennifer Hatch’s dad, John Jarvis, turned 80 years old this year and is still racing a drag car full-time.

“I had a boyfriend in high school who built a car for himself, and we went to the Varney Motor Speedway, and he got out there and was taken aback by the speed and wasn’t sure if he was going to like it,” said Jennifer Hatch. “I just said, ‘Give me the fire suit.’ I ended up winning a few races that year and I’ve just kept going ever since.”

Jennifer Hatch began racing in 1993 and is entering her 33rd year competing in the sport. Not only has she raced in virtually every class there is, but her journey through the region’s stockcar racing scene has seen her go from driver to announcer to race director for the Great Lakes Legends’ Series. The announcement of her appointment came on International Women’s Day 2024 at the largest indoor car show, Motorama, making it a pretty special weekend.

As she progressed through her multi-decade journey through stockcar racing, she had three children, all of whom had a knack for athletics. The youngest of her kids was Zach Hatch who, after a junior-hockey career that included a stop with the 2023 Cherrey Cup-winning Stratford Warriors of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League, found himself entering the very same sport his mother had spent so many years enjoying and succeeding in, creating a special bond between the two. The mother-and-son combo is very unique. Not many moms are out there competing with their sons.

Zach Hatch explained how he has taken to the sport of stockcar racing.

“If I could, I’d do that as a job,” Zach Hatch said. “There isn’t a whole lot of money in it, but it’s a hobby that we really enjoy and that’s why my mom has stayed in it as long as she has. It’s a huge community that you get to be part of, as well. Everyone is there to lend a hand. If something goes wrong, competitors and people from other series are right there to lend a hand or tools and just do whatever it takes to get you back on the track. That’s probably the coolest part.”

The 23-year-old’s love for the sport propelled Zach Hatch, a welder by trade, to spend 13 days building a car from scratch, the very car that he will be racing this coming season, also on display currently at St. Marys Ford. According to Zach Hatch, the hours required in one’s garage and workspaces are more critical than one might initially think.

“Something that gets overlooked is how much time people spend on their cars away from the racetrack,” said Zach Hatch. “It’s not like you can just show up and win. It takes hours and hours of prep time, checking all your measurements, doing a setup and making sure the car is going to work well when you get there. I feel like I’ve learned so much over the past two years in terms of what you need to look for and how to be prepared to have success.”

In his two years racing in the Legends’ Series, Zach Hatch first finished sixth in points in 2023 before climbing to a third-place finish in 2024, narrowly missing second due to being unable to compete in the final race of the year. Zach Hatch first began racing in 2021 in the Bone Stocks Series before moving to the Legends’ Series.

In his eyes, his belief in his own racing skills has been where he’s grown the most over his first few racing seasons.

“I think confidence is the biggest thing. When you’re racing, you see the guys who have done it for years, and they just know what their car is going to do, and they do it, and they’ve been in every situation. I feel like the more you do it, the more situations you get to be in, the better you get. I feel like when I started, I was always so timid because, as much as every corner is the same, every corner is so different and you get put in a different position every time, depending on where the other cars are.

“Sometimes things go hairy and you don’t really know what to do,” Zach Hatch added. “But after things go hairy four, five, or six times, you go, ‘Okay, it’s not that bad. This is what you do to get out of that.’ You build up confidence going through that enough times.”

Jennifer Hatch said her son has successfully transferred elements from his hockey mindset into how he races, which has allowed him to find early success in his racing tenure.

“There are a lot of drivers who drive by the seat of their pants,” said Jennifer Hatch. “They make things happen because they take a lot of chances, but sometimes you watch them and go, ‘How did you think that was going to work out?’ However, Zach is very much a hockey mentality in that he takes things lap-by-lap. For him, every lap is consistent and very similar, and he’s focused on the long game. He is very meticulous and very structured, and it has proven very successful for him.”

Zach Hatch’s racing schedule will take him throughout Ontario, including races at the Grand Bend, Sauble, Flamboro, Buxton, Sunset and Full Throttle speedways. Meanwhile, Jennifer Hatch will be unveiling her car’s new paint scheme later this year and will be racing at Delaware Speedway this coming season.