Stepping out onto the track at the Carifta Games in Jamaica has left young sprinter Taahira Butterfield keen to keep racing.“It was hot out there, hotter than I’m used to, and the track felt hard,” the 14-year-old CedarBridge student recalled of the April 21 to 26 athletics competition.“Our track in Bermuda has a bouncy kind of surface, but this one was more like concrete, the sort of thing where if you fall you’re going to hurt yourself. It’s a fast track sprinting surface.”Taahira’s speciality is the 100 metres.“I came in at 12.97 seconds in the fourth semi-heat,” she said. “Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the finals, but I did my best.”With the Bermuda National Championships coming up in June, Taahira will pit her skills against the track again and race young athlete Victoria Clarke, a close friend whose name often appears alongside Taahira’s in track and field scores.She said: “We’re really good friends. But sometimes it’s competitive. Sometimes I go after her.”The two practice together at National Stadium with veteran sprinter Xavier James, as part of his ‘X Factor’ track club.“We’ve both been racing since we were four and together in primary school. I’m in my third year training in the club and we have extra training this month with the National Championships coming up.”Taahira also represented Bermuda at last month’s Under-16 Caribbean Netball Association tournament in St Kitts.“We won all six games,” she said. “And last year we went to Barbados for the netball and came first there, too. We won five games and lost one.”For the Devonshire teen, athletics represent a ticket to a future. “I would really like to get a scholarship for college,” she said. “I’ve got three more years to work on it.”She has also maintained a place on the Principal’s Honours at CedarBridge. “You have to keep an average of 90 percent and above,” she said.Her mother, Devina, credits Taahira’s father Kenwick with starting her going the extra mile.“He used to run, back in the day, and when we put Taahira in for the Telford Mile she came in third. She just started running, and when people asked where she got it from, I figured it had to be from her daddy.”With the Carifta games coming to Bermuda next year, Mrs Butterfield said, “we want to see Bermudians come out and pack the house”.Taahira hopes to leave her mark at the 2012 games, too. Carifta is the major regional track and field event.Remembering the Jamaica games, which were televised around the world, Taahira said: “I saw my face on the screen when my name was called. I was nervous at first but there were heats on before me so I had a chance to relax.”She added: “I’m never nervous when I’m running.”