The first words you come across reading Amanda Sorensen’s personal Instagram profile reads “Athlete. Motorsport, Fitness, Fashion.” As a pro drift driver in the Formula Drift series, the motorsport side comes through immediately. There’s also smatterings of her fashion photos, along with a few from her fitness adventures. For one video, the still shows Sorensen standing in front of what you’ll find out is her engine – that she’s helping put into her car for the season. There’s also the kick-ass skydiving video as she takes to the skies with the US Air Force — one of her sponsors.
Her online persona reflects her own personal journey in the sport, just as intriguing and eclectic, even daring, taking her from her young days of competing on BMX bikes, to Extreme E with Chip Ganassi Racing, to becoming the first woman to podium in Formula Drift. As she enters her fifth season as a pro drifter — and joining Rockstar energy as one of their official athletes — Motorsport.com sat down with the 22-year-old to learn more about the young boundary-breaking driver.
“Drifting is one of the most mentally challenging sports,” Sorensen tells me in our interview. “Just in the simple fact that I think that with drifting, there’s no room for error to where, you know, I’ve driven in Super Trofeo, in the Lamborghini, and you could blow a turn, but you could make it up the next turn. Same, you know, I’ve raced in the Spec Trophy Truck in like Mint 400 and you blow a turn, you can make it up the next turn. You have to be so precise in drifting. You have to be so mentally prepared for that 32nd run. There’s nothing in motor sports that I feel that compares to the level of pressure and competition when it comes to drifting.”
Amanda Sorenson rocking some drift time in her Sorensen Motorsports’ Air Force BMW Formula Drift car
Photo by: Rockstar Energy
Racing is a natural language for Sorensen — one she speaks well and authoritatively. Well-earned too as she has seemingly raced a little bit of everything, in some capacity in her already long career. It helps that it’s always been a bit of — and still remains — a family affair, her dad having raced off-road trucks in his youth.
So, for Amanda, and her younger brother, Branden, it was no surprise that they too had an interest in racing. Their prolific young careers began with racing BMX bikes. But a stop on the way home from one of those BMX events, just to watch some racing at a nearby kart track, completely changed their trajectory.
“This family was very open-armed and gave Branden and I the option to go and drive their karts on the track. But he was super shy. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll go with you.’ So as the older sister, I kind of led the example of ok, it’s going to be fine.
“So we went onto the track and from that day on were were [sucked in]. We loved it.”
Amanda was about six years old, and Branden just a couple years younger. The two took to karting competition immediately — eventually touring the West Coast and competing across the US. Then there was a move into off-road racing with the Lucas Oil Short-Course series, and to mod Karts, racing against names like Hailee Deegan and Sheldon Creed.
Next was desert racing with side-by-sides and UTVs, where Amanda clinched the 2016 championship. It was truly “the turn” in her career ambitions.
“For me it wasn’t necessarily about the thrill of the driving aspect at the time. It was more about the thrill of the friendly competition — competition between my brother and I.
“I won the championship my rookie year in 2016, just as a young girl competing against all these older men. That was one of my career highlights that made me fall in love with honestly the taste for winning.”
But it was her brother, Branden, who would be responsible for bringing her competition to the next level.
“[Branden] has really been the person that I’ve been able to look up to and follow in his footsteps. He’s been a huge influence on my career. I didn’t gravitate towards drifting as quickly as he did in the beginning. I actually was more focused on going to school and college and I competitively figure skated, so that’s kinda where my focus was.
“I had always kind of been very diverse, but I never really chose a path. But when I got the taste of a 1000 horsepower drift car, I was like ‘this is absolutely insane.’
“It was a passion my brother had, and when he started to share more with me and explain to me car setup, car dynamic, that kind of stuff, and give me the reins, I just fell in love with it.”
The two, together, run their own racing effort, Sorensen Motorsports. Amanda takes care of the business side of things while Branden works on the car development side. Her dad, along with her youngest brother, Camren, who is also coming up in drifting, can also be found helping out at times. That’s not to say Amanda’s not helping. Sometimes, she’ll be out in the garage helping, too.
“[It’s] understanding that each driver should always have knowledge of their own car to be able to perform best on track. I grew up in the garage. I grew up spending late nights in the garage with my brother and dad and working on cars. My brother’s super into the engineering and development side of things, so I always peek my head in and kind of understand what he has going on.
“We actually built my drift car in 2018, so for me, I had hands on the drift build, and I’ve always been involved in it. I don’t as much now, obviously, I have a lot of other things I’m doing, but it was just something where, you know, when you’re involved in motorsports, there’s so many different things it teaches you.
“I’m blessed to grow up in a motorsport family where we get to spend time in the garage, working on a car, understanding like the physics and the mechanics of how it works and all the other things that motorsport teaches you like business and relationships and personal brand. It’s more than just driving on the track.”
All of which is reflected even in her personal branding — and social pages. Amanda tells me social media really gravitated towards her, as something that resonated with her organically. A way to share her diverse interests and life with her fans.
“I think another important thing for me too is I love creating cool content and then also sharing along the journey with the fans in the audience. But I would say, overall, the message I do try to convey is just being like true and authentic to yourself and allowing people to learn from my experiences. I always post content that has meaning and try to avoid that line between posing and actually being authentic and an athlete. There’s some guidelines obviously, but just being authentic to yourself, I think, is really key.
“Most of my viral videos are me being [me], showing that I’m a female, and then going and doing a drift at 80 miles an hour. So, like, that’s something where it just kind of breaking barriers, always pushing to break boundaries. Show people, if you step out of your comfort zone, anything is possible.”
You can catch Amanda’s first race of the season when the Formula Drift’s Prospec series comes to Atlanta, Georgia May 8-10.
In this article
Lalita Chemello
Formula Drift
Amanda Sorensen
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