Inside the World of Professional Drifting & High-Speed Racing | Amanda Sorensen DSH #1241

Our accidents pretty common in this.

Yeah, we are driving within inches of each other.

So like typically we have a brand new like paint scheme on the car like for the first round.

And by not even 10, 20 minutes into your first practice session, you have like tire marks on your door.

We're driving like so close to each other that it's like you're rubbing like the tires on like the front fenders.

Or like you're getting your rear bumpers close to the wall and they call it like you know you ride the wall and leave the paint mark on the white like concrete barrier so saying your heart must be racing yeah we uh we go through a lot of taillights um gosh a lot of bumpers there's like definitely not like bumper budget is like another thing all right guys we got amanda on today professional drifter thanks for coming on yeah thanks for having me absolutely um i do not know much about drifting so i'd love to just hear the basics how you got into this and everything yeah uh drifting is actually a very unique sport because it's more like a competition style it's not like who is the first person across the finish line with like typical racing um there's a lot of like mentality uh training that goes into it because you really just have one shot or you go home but um it's kind of like surfing or similar to like ice skating there's three judges you have line angle style and we're driving on these tracks that are about like a quarter of a mile um and we're driving on the nascar tracks typically are like a road racing track like atlanta um so these are like same tracks that like a lot of the imsa circuit goes on or nascar and they'll put out these clipping points like an outside zone and inside zone and like the goal is you basically we get up to speed so speeds anywhere from like 80 to 120 going a straight line where you have full traction and then you break traction and go sideways holy crap that's not scary you have to fill these zones so outside zones getting your rear bumper as close to the wall as possible damn your front bumper like as close to the clipping point as possible while maintaining your line angle and then style which is broken down into like fluidity and commitment like how committed are you how good does it look is it graceful is it choppy like every small adjustment um is a deduction in points so there's 100 points that you can get in qualifying and then from there we go into competition style and uh top 16 drivers go into main competition and typically there's anywhere from 40 to 50 competitors that show up on a weekend wow that's a lot yeah you said you only got one attempt or how does it work so? Yeah, so basically it's a bracket-style competition. And in order to determine your bracket, you have a qualifying.
With qualifying, you have – and it's kind of different in every circuit. Some of them are – they want you to battle it out to where the top 32 drivers battled for those positions, meaning like they did a proper tandem style competition.
Tandem, which means you have a lead driver and a follow driver. The lead driver is performing what they would call a perfect qualifying run, maintaining line angle style.
You know, like how we talked about those outside zones, those inside zones. Yeah.
The follow driver has to be a mirror image of what the lead driver

is doing so like it's crazy because everything happens so fast it's so important that you study your other components like all of your other um competition and you want to know okay how is this person going to initiate how are they going to adjust at what speeds do they enter how do they enter um and as a follow driver you want to mirror them so then once they go and do their lead run you swap go back to the line and um then the then now it's your turn you do a lead run and your other person who's following does follow run that's insane so and the crazy thing about it all is um each run that we do the reason why it's uh kind of so short is because we go through a set of tires every two laps oh my god so you get your lead run and then you get your follow run on that set of tires because it's the rubber's just burning off right yeah exactly that's crazy sounds expensive too yeah um tire budgets are definitely a thing damn that's nuts you much prefer a lead i'd imagine right than a follower honestly i think in competition it's kind of it depends when you lead first you are more subject to if you make a mistake in the lead line, obviously your person who's following is going to be affected by your mistake. Right.
So if you're leading first, you have the most pressure because if I mess up in my run, then I know I really have to push in my follow run. to whereas if I follow first and the other guy makes

a mistake I know that I don't have to do anything crazy or wow to when the judge is over in my lead run navigating the professional job search is hard you know the perfect job is out there you're just not sure how to find it the good news is you don't have to go at it alone you need specialized recruiting group connect at srgpros.com srgpros.com they're here to guide you and help you find a role that fits all without costing a dime. Meet Specialized Recruiting Group, offering a tailored approach to find your next role.
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That makes sense. So it's almost good to go second then.
I know. Follow first.
Some people have different preferences. It really just depends on the track like who you're battling some people there's a lot of like there are some drivers that uh love to play games so you know they'll hesitate on the takeoff or they'll be doing a certain type of initial like initiation and entry every single time during practice but then as soon as he gets competition they'll change it so like you know there's very um there's a lot of strategies that go on behind i like that because i'm a chess player yeah exactly kind of similar so there's some mental games going on too it's not just about the race so you got to really just you cannot react to your lead driver you have to anticipate your lead driver you know similar with chess i'm not a big chess fan but like you're not i've never really played chess to be honest assuming it's the same it's a good game because it's all skill based yeah i'm not a fan of luck yeah exactly there's a lot of skill um back to what i was saying though with like you have one chance you have one chance to rely on your car to also work you know so like it's huge and it's crucial that the preparation that goes into preparing for the competition is very perfect um my team that i have i have a team of quite a few people and you know we have our engineers we have our tire changers we have our feelers but even that like our crew chief like i could go out and car could overheat at the line.
Wow. And I can call a five minute timeout and I have five minutes to fix the car.
That's not happening to you? I've definitely had to call five before. When you call a five, it's typically when you're on the spot, like up ready to go and compete or possibly do your lead run.
You find a problem with the car. Something happens.
You you want to call five you're not allowed to touch the car until the technical directors are there and they start the clock at five minutes if you touch the car you're automatically disqualified holy that's when your time starts um the preparation that goes on behind the scenes with pre-season prep is like say we do get into a crash in my lead run you know and my guys have five minutes to fix the shock in the front arm i have these spare boxes that are full complete sets of bolt on bolt off um for each corner of the car so typically in our trailer we have my car as well as my brother's car we have two full sets to build two completely different cars that's insane in five minutes five minutes and like our crew guys will practice that um obviously there is a point in time where you're like okay this is unreasonable to do like a motor change in five minutes you know like yeah you just have to call it but there is that kind of crucial factor but like as much as you can prepare for those moments the better off you are because you know you don't there's really no luck it's more of like the preparation and the skill yeah that's insane our accidents pretty common in this um yeah we are driving within inches of each other so like typically we have a brand new like paint scheme on the car like for the first round and by not even 10 20 minutes into your first practice session you have like tire marks on your door we're driving like so close to each other that it's like you're rubbing um like the tires on like the front fenders or like you're getting your rear bumpers close to the wall and they call it like you know you ride the wall and you leave the paint mark on the white white concrete barrier so saying your heart must be racing yeah we uh we go through a lot of taillights Oh a lot of bumpers there's like definitely not like bumper budget is like another thing yeah you gotta have crazy mental resilience for this sport i'd imagine yeah it's very um it's very like mind challenging i would say a lot of other drivers i personally feel like i've driven many different forms of motorsports and many different like disciplines. So for me, drifting is honestly the hardest when it came to mental preparation.
Like I figure skated for 10 years and like every single time I would practice my routine over and over and over again. At least one of my jumps or spins would not be how I wanted it to be during competition you know so it's kind of similar to when I'm drifting it's like you can prepare as much as you possibly can but when you're actually like get up to the line the nerves are applied the pressure's applied that's when it really matters like yeah that's when the mental training can kind of really come into play i'm the same way basketball with free throws i'll make 20 in a row and then the game starts i'll miss every single free throw yeah it's crazy how the sport can do that to you right well and for me it's crazy too just because like i had like an i was able to see how like my younger childhood like sports that i played in really translated into like what I'm doing as a career now.
And like with figure skating, like it wasn't up until I was about maybe 14, 15 and I was at a drift competition and it just clicked like one day. And I was like, it's no different than a practice run.
Like, why am I getting so worked up about it? You know, I found ways to actually calm my body down. I love cold plunging.
And like when I first started cold plunging, I used to be like, freaking out, you know, like you get in the water and you're like, this is so hard. Yeah, but you kind of find a way to bring your heart rate down.
You know, you focus on one thing, you slow your breath down, you slow your heart rate down, like, same concept when it comes to, you know, pulling up to the line or going out to skate in the competition yeah that's probably important to have that method of kind of decompressing right yeah exactly before a big race and you've raced in some big ones lately you just made the podium at formula drift right yes uh first female to podium in formula drift that's incredible making history um i've been working at that goal for about three years congrats so it's very emotional

emotional um accomplishment um there's no female in pro so i'm in pro spec there's four ranks

similar to nascar you know how like in nascar you have arca trucks um xfinity and cup series

with formula drift or the drifting scene you have like a grassroots level which is more of like

lower horsepower cars you know you could bring like your mom's car up and try to drift it

Thank you. with formula drift or the drifting scene you have like a grassroots level which is more of like lower horsepower cars you know you could bring like your mom's car up and try to drift it and then you have like um your pro-am level and in order to move into the like up the ranks you have to place top three in the championship so that's for a full season um which means like events anywhere between four to eight rounds winning that championship um and placing top three so there's pro-am pro-spec and then pro i'm in pro-spec and i'm the highest ranking in pro-spec for females but no um female has ever made it to pro wow like in the world so crazy for me my goal is to be you know that one and like i don't know how i ended up in this sport to be honest like my brother and i just kind of really gravitated towards it we love the idea of it we have great support there we love the atmosphere um and you know it's more of like a family hobby turned career type situation but my goal is to be the first female in pro that's impressive i've had danica on here i think oh really was she the first for nascar for nascar female uh i don't know about like first but she definitely was like an icon yeah i remember watching her on espn as a kid yeah yeah she was a legend yeah it amazes me how people like her and you are like there's not many female competitors right in this scene at all yeah there's uh we have one other female in my division um internationally there's about i would say at a higher level kind of like similar to my level there's only about like five or six females um damn and i couldn't even put a number on how many males like probably thousands yeah exactly and do you keep them separate like are you friends with them or do you view them as competition no we're all friends everyone that's what i love about the drifting community and like even when i go to a practice event like i'm going to on this saturday and like you pull up to a practice event and it's so accessible to the general public like the drifting events and just drifting in general that there is a large female audience there.
Really? So a lot of the females support each other. Over on the East Coast, they have this like club called Drift Kitchen and it's like at least 20 females that have drift cars like in the state.
And so a lot of the girls support each other. Everyone loves to just go out and like drive with your friends.
Like that's the concept of drifting. That's cool.
Is it a new sport? Like, how long has this been around, drifting? So Formula Drift came to the United States in 2003. Okay.
And I, like, was one years old, like, at that time. But it's crazy because I didn't really follow it until about COVID time, like, 2019, I would say.
But it came to the United States in 2003, it's the fastest growing motorsport wow in the usa right now that's impressive so um for me i have really just been able to go and travel the world and see the other drift series other than just formula drift here so there's like drift masters in europe um their last round is in poland in a stadium that sells out with 60 000 people damn so it's crazy because i didn't really understand the potential of this sport until i had gone international with it i also didn't understand my social media following until i had realized how huge it is like internationally in Brazil, in Europe, in Japan, like the scenes over there are insane. So you got a big international following then.
Yeah, exactly. And I didn't understand that, you know, like until I went to like a true like cultured car event overseas.
Was that the Saudi Arabia trip you took or? That was different. That was like a rally race that I i was doing so i raced in this series called extreme e there's 10 races we race in five different remote locations in an electric race car that's crazy electric race car all-wheel drive electric race car um i raced for gmc and our car was like a replica of a hummer ev i actually daily to hummer ev which thought was like pretty great.
Like I really wasn't into electric cars until I dailyed one. And I was like, okay, this is kind of cool.
But yeah, I got to work a lot with the team on developing the front to rear power. There's so much you can do with the technology with having an electric race car that I had no idea about.
I didn't know they were that advanced. Yeah, like turning inputs.
Like if my steering wheel is turned at like 10, 15 degrees, I can distribute the power front rear to a certain ratio. You know, you can't do that with a combustion engine.
Yeah. So there was a lot of like development that I worked with, with the team there.
Some of them are fast. I think, what is it, the Cybertruck's like 1.8 seconds, to 60 now yeah they're crazy that's really fast that must be faster than most like non-electric cars i'd imagine i definitely think like the electric with commotion engine like the hybrid um prototype cars that they're doing are like insane because obviously you have the torque you know you can't have that torque without the electric um motor yeah how often are you doing rallies um this year i'm actually taking off the extreme series has been put on a pause right now they're developing a hydrogen car damn it's the first fia licensed hydrogen racing series called extreme h um as soon as they come out with the full schedule for extreme h extreme e will more than likely be a tag along series so i'll get back into that stuff once they launch all the season um details my buddy came on the show two years ago and predicted hydrogen cars blowing up and all the comments were yeah all the comments were like no way like hating on them yeah it's crazy you don't like them though i've never tested one if i'm being honest like yeah it'll be my first time um going and driving a hydrogen car but also that was like i never drove an electric car and then i drove an electric race car for my first time in saudi arabia you know so it was definitely the craziest thing for me to get used to was we're racing, you know, in Saudi Arabia, we were racing over kind of where the Neon Project is, actually.
And I just couldn't get over the concept of, like, no noise. I could hear everything.
I could hear the shocks compressing. I could hear the sand hitting the, like, the fenders.
Wow. I was just like, I cannot, like, is the car breaking? It feels weird.
You know, like, so there was for me, I was just kind of like, that was just like i cannot like is the car breaking it feels weird you know like so there was for me i was just kind of like that was the biggest change um it's just you know

being used to hearing everything that's happening with the car yeah because if you go 200 in gas

car you're hearing everything yeah well i mean you're hearing the motor right you're not hearing

like you're not really hearing like the shocks compressing or like a rock hit the side of the

car so like for me i was just like okay we gotta really get used to that have you heard that race across the u.s um is that like more of a sports car uh it's like the fastest person to get from cali to new york or something i've seen something like that yeah that one is so interesting to me i've never actually followed it but um people get arrested everywhere it's crazy yeah i personally like i drive like a grandma on the road like really follow the speed limit but wow because like you know i just like i don't know um so for me sometimes when i'm driving like i see someone blow by me like going 110 i'm like is that necessary like i just understand the fact that i'm on the road with other drivers who like you know you get into the car with like a friend and you have a passenger seat and like they don't really know how to drive. And you're like, you can't put that person in the same environment as someone else doing 150.
Yeah. That's so funny to me how you have that mindset.
Yeah. That's a professional driver.
It makes me so nervous. I got pulled over a few days ago, actually.
Oh, really? 97. Nice.
In a 65? In a 65. To be fair, it just turned from 75 to 65.
Oh, okay. And they never tell you when that change happens.
I know. So, yeah.
But yeah, I deserve that. I pulled away.
I pulled off so quick. He was like, oh, thanks for pulling over that fast.
Yeah. I saw him.
I mean, he got me on the gun. Yeah.
Have you been pulled over? I have about like five speeding tickets. Okay.
I feel like it's so easy to speed though. Honestly, I agree.
And for me, my speeding tickets actually, majority of them came from California. Towing a trailer.
Towing a trailer. In California, you have to do 55 towing the trailer.
Tours like everyone else is driving 80 around, do like 70. So yeah, I've been caught a few times in California.
My U-Haul trip from Cali to Vegas felt forever. It's, yeah, it's very annoying.
Yeah, they only hit like 65, I think, the U-Hauls. Yeah.
And everyone else is going 80 to 90 past year. I know, and you're just like, this makes the trip feel 10 times longer.
Turned into a six and a half hour trip from Cali. Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah, that sucked. How've always wanted to go to scotland um scotland's good scotland i've actually been to twice now um actually three times so scotland is where our second stop was for the extreme e-series we were racing in an abandoned mine so it was an abandoned coal mine that's cool um it was about like 700 feet into the ground i would say like it was pretty insane wow we were racing in and out abandoned coal mine.
That's cool. It was about like 700 feet into the ground, I would say.
Like, it was pretty insane. Wow.
We were racing in and out of this mine, so they set up a track in the inside of it. Then they had a nice little like outside track on the outside of it.
And Scotland is crazy because the weather is never reliable. You know, one day on a Saturday, we raced.
It was super super sunny. Sunday we got to the track at like 7 a.m.
There was so much fog and we couldn't start the race. The live stream had to get pushed back by like a couple hours because our medevaced helicopter wasn't able to get in.
Wow. So that was unfortunate.
Xtreme was like live, aired live. So a lot of the live streaming stuff was very important.
But unfortunately, you know, like we showed up and there was nothing we could do with the weather. How many people are on those live streams usually that amount? Well, so it's actually aired on TV internationally.
Oh, wow. So it's on the networks.
Don't ask me the channels. the unfortunate part is it doesn't have the largest following here in america so majority of the time like my family or friends that were watching um it would come on the channels at like 11 p.m or like 2 a.m you know so like one one episode for 30 minutes the other episode for 30 minutes for like a saturday sunday um and but it was huge in europe a lot of the drivers were from Europe a lot of the drivers were actually like we had Sebastian Loeb who is like an insane rally car driver um someone like Tanner Faust who is also rally cars you know off-road so I was racing against like the top level drivers wow um but a lot of them come from Europe yeah so it was huge over in europe i've noticed that with f1 vegas it's not as big here as f1 in europe right yeah exactly and i think that's just because if you look back like 20 30 years and it's like nascar was what was popular you know we're kind of in that phase where i personally think nascar is fading out.
You still see a lot of like brands spending insane amount of money there.

But there is, you know, like I said, the drifting community is growing.

And now we have F1 in Miami, F1 in Vegas, F1 in Texas.

So, like, I think we're starting to get more of like a diverse feel for motorsports other than just NASCAR in America. Yeah.
I don't hear as much about NASCAR as I used to. I'll say that.
Yeah, for sure. The stands are, like, not packed.
Like, I went to a NASCAR race, and I watched the truck series, and there was, like, very few people. Really? I'm just like, it's crazy to me.
Like, wow. And, like, the money that the brands are spending spending there, like millions and millions of dollars, like easily 7 million for like a tier 2 sponsor NASCAR.
Oh, crap. Just to be on TV on the car? Just to be on the car.
And it's like, you know, like there's other motorsports where they are doing larger numbers. Like drifting is second to NASCAR in like they're following and so or sorry no drifting is second most followed on social media and that's with all american motorsports so like imsa like sports car racing that kind of stuff wow um but like our audience is millennials right like we're on social media watching on live streams um towards like nascar is more of like they're on the network so like the older generation old school yeah exactly so more money in that space basically um yeah i definitely would say like not as much money as like an imsa or an f1 but nascar is just i don't know hopefully the money gets there and drifting i know with pickleball they're still trying to figure out how to make money too uh yeah i, I actually just competed in a celebrity pickleball tournament.
Oh, you did? Yeah, I co-hosted the first day with Mario Lopez. Okay.
And on the second day, I actually competed in the pickleball tournament. Damn.
Let me tell you, I play pickleball with my friends just down the street as a fun thing to do. But to see the brands that we were able to bring on board like um door dash for example um it was just crazy to see like how fast this like sport's growing i just went to do it and pickle down the street like here in vegas and the thing's packed like to obey it was like i had to book two days in advance i didn't know that was open yet yes i need to get out there i love pickleball yeah was that the one with andy roddick and andre agassi or was that a different pickleball event i'm not sure oh no no uh this was different so it's called celebrity pickleball bash um we had like terrell owens um brandy chastain so some fun like celebrities and then we had a few like professional pickleball players nice was ben johns there uh he's the number one i think i don't know anyone else honestly i was co-hosting the first day there was so much going on as my first time co-hosting like i i've never like done anything like that so um i was just following the script the script was going off like you know we're trying to get back on center like it was great but yeah pickleball is fun it's um it's a hard sport actually people think it's easy but it's not like i think it's so like entry level like accessible but then as soon as you start playing with the pros you feel like there's levels oh yeah for sure yeah and my issue is i'm so tall so i want to hit everything yeah yeah yeah like you know yeah because it's going out but my instinct is to hit it some slams yeah I used to play tennis oh okay okay yeah you ever play tennis uh no so like this was my first time playing like like I'm not even good at ping pong you know so I was like I'm gonna go on stage and go play uh pickleball in front of all these people in the theater and it was like NBA all-star weekend weekend so you know we were in the theater in san francisco and i was just like all right you know like i'll be the laugh of the show i'm not gonna be the pro that's for sure and i'm embracing it before i go out there how'd you do um my team lost so you know it was fine i think um we were it was me hunter pence't know.
Um, he's a former, um, basketball, no, former baseball player. Baseball.
Okay. Yeah.
And so him and I were teammates. He's very competitive.
He definitely held most of the way for our team. But, um.
I've seen those videos where the guy's playing with the girl and the guy will just hit all the shots. I was playing with, against Brandy Chastain and, um, who is like a former ufc uriah hall yeah yeah he was on the show yeah so um that's who i was playing against like brandy just honestly like bullied me like so bad like she was just like we're winning this all right well you probably had you probably have really fast reaction time right yeah but honestly like when we were on the stage there were so many lights i couldn't see the bowl coming oh and i was like i don't know if i'm like silly or what it is but also everyone played the day prior everyone was able they got loose you know like whatever so it was fun time though that's what it was about you did some stuff with the air force i saw on your youtube yeah so i'm actually sponsored by the air force wow i've been working with them this is going to be year four working with them

um so we are actually we do a lot with their recruiting team um we really like to you know

highlight the concept of in the air force there's jets right and with the jets there's a crew chief

tire changer fuel or mechanics and that's very similar to our race team so it's a very good

crossover club that we always do like highlighting the similarities between the racing industry

Thank you. tire changer fuel or mechanics and that's very similar to our race team so it's a very good crossover club that we always do like highlighting the similarities between the racing industry and like the air force and the military um like one team one goal type situation yeah so um i've been fortunate enough to do insane things with them i went flown an f-16 with them with the thunderbirds pulled 9.1 g's that's the fastest jet right yes insane i did some canine training with them i have worked with them on doing some like ground training stuff with their um team that goes in with the other like military when they're going into like to a place or a base like and they're not allowed to bring any guns they will be the people like project protecting like everyone as far as like training like choke holds and like go hand-to-hand stuff self-defense like that kind of stuff um so that was fun i changed a tire on a carrier plane that's impressive i can't even change a tire on a car so yeah it's fun i think it's very book to book when it comes to how they do things which is like similar to our race team yeah um my tire changer similar concept just to their airplane um tire changer so the most recent thing i've done with them was skydiving i jumped out of an airplane which i never thought i was going to do i honestly like so i fly planes yeah and i'm not i don't have my license for my private pilot's license but i have about like 45 hours um so i just haven't done the ground school but regardless of that i am like i'm never jumping out of a perfectly good airplane you know um and they're like hey do you want to go jump with the wings of blue in colorado at the air force academy and i was like if i say no like i'm turning on a one-time yeah that sounds crazy um we went jumped with their wings of blue team which is their demo team that like jump into a lot of their events with like the smoke on their feet um so i did a tandem jump and i honestly would love to go again and do skydiving and i want want to go get certified.
Dan, you liked it that much? I've had so much fun. I love, like, adrenaline rushing things.
The concept of, like, you know, you really could, it could go wrong fast, I think is similar to anything else that we do. And as long as you're prepared, you know, like, you kind of limit that fear of it.
But I'm definitely going to be going and jumping. Wow.
So you weren't shitting your pants during that? I was. I totally was.
Until I jumped out of the airplane. And I'm terrified of heights.
Like I will not even cliff dive. Like I don't like jumping off cliffs.
I don't jump off the waterfall into the pool. Like I'm terrified of that.
Wow. It makes me sick to my stomach.
But when I stood on the edge, he was like, okay, like take another step. And I was like, what? But but like for me it was more just like the thought of like falling out before i was ready you know what i mean but like there was really no like time to be ready like he was ready so that didn't matter you know um but once you jumped out of the plane like it was so peaceful um i find like it was very similar to like just like riding a harley or like riding a motorcycle like you know you have a lot of like wind in your face um so it was peaceful though like it was so cool once you like deploy the shoe you're kind of just floating around we did some tricks like we did a backflip oh my god on your first jump you did a back so i mean it was the wings of blue team so like full trust in him yeah they probably done thousands of those insane amount of jumps and we were at the air force academy in colorado so we actually went up in the plane with quite a few other kids that were taking skydiving as an elective so that's an elective yeah in the air force you can choose like your electives and wow the only rule that i found out about though that i was like there's no way there was a guy that was in our plane and he was like I'm jumping out for my first time but he was by himself really so in the air force like when you take this academy like the air force academy in Colorado when you choose a selective they train you and they do a like the training facility is insane you know like there's um rappels coming out of the roof like simulating more of like skydiving for your first time.
Got it. But he trained for a certain amount of weeks and then he went up in the plane and that was his first time jumping.
So the whole idea is to trust your process, trust in yourself. And like he packed his own shoe and everything.
Like he jumped out of the plane. I'm like, this is your first time jumping out.
Like there's no way I would jump out. But I mean, I guess with that training, it's like it's crazy.
crazy but yeah there was like a group of students up there and that was their elective that is skydiving first time by yourself because i think if you do it like at a place you need to jump with like someone what a hundred times or something yeah yeah oh my gosh wow the air force does great training shout out to them yeah it is their training facilities are top notch and like I when I toured this Air Force Academy, you know, there's so much that's going on there. They have reaction time training.
A lot of the training, actually, I was like, wow, I could use this for my own benefit. You know, the facilities are so nice.
as far as like the electives they have so many electives they have it's so focused around like

your physical fitness and like i'm so into that stuff and like you know just learning about the body and like that kind of stuff so they have you know pools and sky like high dive jumping and um just a lot of cool like features simulators that will. Like I went into a simulator and simulated hypoxia.
Really? So for like when the jets obviously begin to lose cabin pressure at a certain altitude, you know, you have a loss of oxygen. Your body goes into hypoxia.
So Brandon and I simulated hypoxia on the simulator where they like put a mask on us. We're flying a jet on a sim.
And they're like, OK, like we want you to recognize the symptoms of hypoxia. So this is how they train their their fighter jet pilots, like, you know, to know what to do when something like that happens or to recognize the symptoms before it happens.
And it's too late. That's actually really cool.
Yeah. So you just got dizzy on the simulator basically? Um, actually my color went first.
So like everything turned black and white. Damn.
And for my brother, he, he immediately recognized it. Um, he just felt very lightheaded.
He said, so for me, like everything turned black and white and I was like, Whoa, like, but it's the loss of oxygen to your brain. Yeah.
that's nuts. Do you ever do those race simulators?

Like, are those accurate?

Yeah, I actually, I drive on a SimMagic racing sim, which is really popular in the drift industry. It's a full e-brake, throttle brake, like steering wheel set up with a seat.
So I a full 3d screen that kind of like or sorry a full 360 screen that goes around so like i can see everything left to right um and that's how we train because like we're talking about like those tire budgets are not cheap yeah so um it's very very accurate it helps with training muscle memory just getting uh used to like the visuals and so that's how i

usually typically train for an event that makes sense you said it's scored you start at 100 what's

the highest score you've ever gotten on drifting um that's a good question like i would say i

st louis two years ago i qualified second which was like the highest i've ever qualified okay um

and for me like i do four events a year for the Formula Drift series. So with that, it's like I've only, you know, done about 16, I would say.
16 races. Yeah, yeah, with Formula Drift.
Yeah, that's not that many, right? Yeah. So with the pro level, you do eight a year.
So like I go to almost all of them because I own the team with my brother and so i'm there like managing everything i do all the sponsorship side of things so making sure partners are happy that kind of stuff but um yeah outside of those four formula drift events we also drive in like there's like a grid life event that's like um t pain will like play there and then he'll also go drift his car. So it's like more of a festival style.
More casual. But I do compete in events about every like three weeks out of the month, I would say.
Okay. So you're traveling a lot.
Yeah. That's cool.
I didn't know you owned the team too. Yeah.
So my brother and I own it together. We have two cars, obviously, but we do all the sponsorship funding.
Like I do that kind of side and he does the car management side. That's impressive.
You might be the youngest team owners, right? Yeah, we are. That's super cool.
And this year we're bringing on, I have a 13 year old brother. He is now the youngest licensed prospect driver.
Wow. So in Formula Drift, he's the youngest licensed driver.
So he'll be joining our team. So I'll have three cars, two semis traveling around, and then we're going to have a pro driver come on the other team.
So two semis traveling to eight major markets across the United States competing in these Formula Drift events. That's cool.
And four cars total. Did your parents really push this on you guys? Because three of you guys are doing this.

Honestly, it's one of those things like the family time that you get driving at the track together, doing in like motorsports is so addictive. You know, like in motorsports, there's more than just driving the car like we've talked about.
Like, you know, managing the budgets, managing partnerships, managing relationships, understanding how to build a personal brand, talking to PR. So it's nonstop.
Like every single day that I wake up is dedicated to growing like my own personal brand as well as like my career in other sorts, you know. So same with my brothers.
And it was just kind of like that hobby like i said that

took over and turned into a career that's awesome what's next for you and the brother and where people find you um as far as what's next you never really know like going into 2025 um i will be driving in formula drift and pro spec um possibly dipping my feet into some more off-road stuff i have a huge partnership announcement coming out so i'm super stoked um and i'll be signing with an energy drink which

i think is super awesome nice but i yeah just continue like pushing growing the personal brand

driving in all these different types of motorsports um and they can find me on instagram

youtube facebook at amanda sorenson perfect check her out guys thanks for coming on that was fun

Thank you. types of motorsports um and they can find me on instagram youtube facebook at amanda sorenson perfect check her out guys thanks for coming on that was fun see you guys thank you