When it was time to head for the car in the driveway at the Evans home in Kalona, the race was on.

Jovi Evans would stare down her younger sister, Jeorgia.

Don’t get in the way. Here I go.

Who did win?

That’s where the memory gets a bit foggy.

When Jovi claims victory, Jeorgia quickly disagrees, her eyes filling quickly with the determination of a competitive sibling rivalry.

“I always won,” Jovi said.

“You did not!” Jeorgia shouted.

And there’s a laugh. Perhaps it was Jovi knowing that maybe sometimes she won and sometimes Jeorgia won.

Those spirited races point right to this week’s state track championships at Drake’s famed Blue Oval in Des Moines. Jeorgia and Jovi enter the 100-meter dash competition ranked as the number one and two sprinters in Class 2A. One team. One family.

Last Thursday in a district meet in Monticello, they lined up right next to each other in both the 100 and 200 in the final heats, the championship heats. They finished one-two in both races with Jeorgia setting school records both times to beat her sister by hundredths of a second.

The same scenario could happen in Des Moines.

“This is something we’ve been dreaming of for the last three to four years,” Jeorgia Evans said. “Of us just running together.”

They have already played on the same state tournament team, Mid-Prairie’s volleyball team that is coached by their mom and dad, Sherry and Zeb Evans. They set a school record for wins last fall and won the River Valley South Conference championship.

But this is so different.

It’s individual competition and a team, all at once.

Constantly pushing buttons on her cellphone Thursday night, Jovi ran up to Jeorgia after discovering that they had posted the two quickest times in the 100 in the state on a night when district championship teams were held across the state of Iowa at the same time.

Jeorgia won the 100 in 12.05 seconds, Jovi was second in :12.35. And that was on a high school track on a windy night. The times on the Blue Oval are usually faster. Jeorgia’s time was more than half a second faster than the time of 12.61 seconds that Pella Christian’s Rachel Kacmarynski won last year’s state title with. Kacmarynski is the fourth seed this year with a time of :12.52.

The 200 was almost the same. Jeorgia had the fastest time (25.32 seconds) for a number one ranking and Jovi, coming off a knee injury and surgery, was number five.

The top eight, after prelims, will reach Saturday’s final round at the Blue Oval.

“I know that we’re going to see each other again,” Jovi said. “We’re going to see everybody. We’re going to be in the State together and I get to experience that with my sister. There’s no one else I’d want to do that with.”

Has this ever happened before? Have two sisters ever been the fastest sprinters in the state before? In the same year?

Remember, this is the school of state champions and sisters Anna, Marie and Danielle Hostetler with Rachel Hostetler, a freshman this year, already having won a team state title in cross country last fall. Rachel qualified for Des Moines in three individual races herself: 800, 1500, 3000.

Jeorgia Evans and Rachel Hostetler are the highest-ranked freshmen in all of their state track events. Think about that.

Jeorgia is coming off a Drake Relays in which she was the only freshman in the girls high school 100 finals. She finished eighth with a time of 12.31 seconds, just one-tenth of a second behind Kacmarynski, a sophomore.

Jovi was there to help her sister.

“She was just there to warm up with me and support,” Jeorgia said. “Now I’m going to be running against her. So now, that sister rivalry is going to help a lot. It’s going to push us to beat the other people, too.”

“Finally, I’ve kind of gotten my groove back since everything that happened,” said Jovi, who injured her knee in a club volleyball tournament just one day after Jeorgia set meet records in every event she entered in the Iowa indoor championships in March. “I honestly wouldn’t be able to do it without her pushing me at practice, pushing me in the morning.”

It all goes back to those races to the family car. First one there gets the window seat!

News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter (X): @bowkerpaul