Digital Social Hour - Inside the World of Professional Drifting & High-Speed Racing | Amanda Sorensen DSH #1220

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

🔥 Amanda Sorensen on Breaking Barriers in Drifting, Racing Extreme E & Making History 🚀 In this high-energy episode, we sit down with Amanda Sorensen, a professional drifter, off-road racer, and motorsports trailblazer, to discuss her journey to the top, competing in Formula Drift, Extreme E, and making history as the first female podium finisher in Formula Drift Pro Spec. Topics Covered: ✅ The intense world of professional drifting & what it takes to win ✅ Breaking barriers as a female in motorsports ✅ Competing in Extreme E & racing in Saudi Arabia ✅ How she built her own racing team & manages sponsorships ✅ The future of motorsports – from electric racing to hydrogen cars This episode is packed with adrenaline, strategy, and behind-the-scenes insights into one of the fastest-growing sports in the world! 📲 Follow Amanda Sorensen & Learn More: 🔗 Instagram: @Amanda.Sorensen12 🔗 YouTube: Amanda Sorensen 🔗 Website: AmandaSorensen.com ⏱ CHAPTERS ⏳ 00:00 – What It’s Like to Drift Inches Away from Competitors ⏳ 03:15 – The Mental & Physical Preparation for Drifting ⏳ 07:30 – The High Costs & Risks of Competitive Drifting ⏳ 12:10 – Making History: First Female Podium in Formula Drift Pro Spec ⏳ 17:40 – The Challenges of Competing in a Male-Dominated Sport ⏳ 23:50 – Competing in Extreme E & Racing in Saudi Arabia ⏳ 30:25 – The Future of Motorsports: Hydrogen & Electric Racing ⏳ 36:10 – Running Her Own Racing Team & Managing Sponsorships ⏳ 42:00 – The Rise of Drifting & Its International Popularity ⏳ 50:15 – Skydiving with the Air Force & Other Wild Adventures ⏳ 55:30 – What’s Next for Amanda Sorensen & Her Racing Career 🔥 Apply to Be on the Podcast & Business Inquiries: 🎙 APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application 📩 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]

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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 you leave the paint mark on the white concrete barrier. That's insane, your car must be racing. Yeah we go through a lot of tail lights, That's insane, your heart must be racing. Yeah, we go through a lot of tail lights.

Oh my gosh. A lot of bumpers. There's definitely not bumper budget is another thing. All right guys, we got Amanda on today. Professional drifter, thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. Absolutely. I do not know much about drifting,

so I'd love to just hear the basics, how you got into this and everything. Yeah, drifting is actually a very unique sport because it's more of like a competition style. It's not like who is the first person to cross the finish line with like typical racing. There's a lot of like mentality training that goes into it because you really just have one shot or you go home.

But it's kind of like surfing or similar to like ice skating. There's three judges. You have a line angle style and We're driving on these tracks that are about like a quarter of a mile And we're driving on the NASCAR tracks typically are like a road racing track like Atlanta 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, so like an outside zone, an 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 or your front bumper as close to the clipping point as possible while maintaining your line angle and then style, which is broken down into fluidity and commitment. How committed are you? How good does it look?

Is it graceful? Is it choppy? Every small adjustment 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 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 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 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 drivers 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's 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 competition,

and you wanna 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, 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 then now it's your turn. You do a lead run and your other person who's following does a follow run.

That's insane. And the crazy thing about it all is each run that we do, the reason why it's kind of so short is because we go through a set of tires every two laps. Oh my gosh. So you get your lead run and then you get your follow run on that set of tires. Because the rubber is just burning off right? Yeah exactly. That's crazy. Sounds expensive too. Yeah tire budgets are only 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? obviously your person who's following is going to be affected by your mistake. 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.

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. 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 love to play games. So they'll hesitate on the takeoff or they'll be doing a certain type of initiation and entry every single time during practice, but then as soon as it gets to competition,

they'll change it. So like, you know, there's very, 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've got to really just,

you cannot react to your lead driver, you cannot react to your lead driver. You have to anticipate your lead driver. Similar with chess. I'm not a big chess fan, but I've never really played chess, to be honest. Oh, wow. But I'm assuming it's the same. It's a good game, because it's all skill-based.

I'm not a fan of luck. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of skill. Back to what I was saying, though, with you have one chance. You have one chance to 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.

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 fuel fuelers but even that like our crew chief like I could go out and my car could overheat at the line Wow and I can call a five minute timeout and I have five minutes to fix the car 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 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. That's when your time starts. 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 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 our crew guys will practice that. Obviously, there is a point in time where you're like, OK, this is unreasonable to do a motor change in five minutes. You just have to call it.

But there is that crucial factor. But as much as you can prepare for those moments, the better off you are. Because there's really no luck. It's more of the preparation and the skill. Yeah, that's insane. Are accidents pretty common in this? Yeah, we are driving within inches of each other.

So typically, we have a brand new paint scheme on the car for the first round. And by not even 10-20 minutes into your first practice session you have tire marks on your door. We're driving so close to each other that it's like you're rubbing the tires on the front fenders or you're getting your rear bumpers close to the wall and they call it you ride the wall and you leave the paint mark on the white concrete barrier. That's insane. Your heart must be racing. Yeah, we go through a lot of taillights. Oh my gosh. A lot of bumpers.

There's definitely not like bumper budget is like another thing. Yeah, you've got to have crazy mental resilience for this sport, I'd imagine. Yeah, it's very minding, I would say. A lot of other drivers, I personally feel like I've driven in many different forms of motorsports and many different disciplines.

So for me, drifting is honestly the hardest when it came to mental preparation. Wow. I figure skated for 10 years. And 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 is applied, that's when it really matters. That's when the mental training can really come into play. On the same way in basketball with free throws, I'll make 20 in a row and then the game starts, I'll miss every single free throw. It's crazy how the sport can do that to you, right? For me it's crazy too, just because I was able to see how my younger childhood sports that I played in really translated into what I'm doing as a career now.

And with figure skating, it wasn't up until I was about maybe 14, 15 and I was at a drift competition and it just clicked one day and I was like, it's no different than a practice run. 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 first female to podium in Formula Drift. That's incredible. Making history I've been working at that goal for about three years congrats. So it's very emotional emotional accomplishment There's no female in pro. So I'm in prospect. There's four ranks similar to NASCAR

You know how like in NASCAR you have Arca trucks Xfinity and and Cup Series. With Formula Drift or the drifting scene, you have a grassroots level, which is more of like lower horsepower cars. You could bring your mom's car out there and try to drift it. And then you have your Pro-Am level. And in order to move up the ranks,

you have to place top three in the championship. So that's for a full season Which means like events anywhere between four to eight rounds winning that championship 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 Female has ever made it to pro. Wow like in the world no female has ever made it to pro. Wow. Like in the world.

That's crazy. For me, my goal is to be that one in like, I don't know how I ended up in this sport to be honest. 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. And 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 female pros? 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. 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 we have one other female in my division 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 damn and I couldn't even put a number on how many males like 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 oh you'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 one 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 such a large female audience there. Really?

So a lot of the females support each other. Over on the East Coast, they have this club called Drift Kitchen and it's like at least 20 females that have drift cars in the state. A lot of the girls support each other. Everyone loves 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 United States in 2003 and I like was one years old but it's crazy because I didn't really follow it until about COVID time, like 2019 I would say.

But I came to the United States in 2003 and it's the fastest growing motorsport in the USA right now. Wow. That's impressive. So 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. Their last round is in Poland in a stadium that sells out with 60,000 people. So it's crazy because I didn't really understand the

potential of the 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 internationally in Brazil, in Europe, in Japan. The scenes over there are insane. So you got a big international following then. Yeah, exactly. And I didn't understand that until I went to a true cultured car event overseas.

Was that the Saudi Arabia trip you took or? That was different. That was like a rally race that 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. I raced for GMC and our car was like a replica of a Hummer EV. I actually daily lead a Hummer EV which I thought was pretty great. I really wasn't into electric cars until I daily lead 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 there 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 cyber trucks like 1.8 seconds zero to 60 now Yeah, they're crazy. That's really fast. I must be faster than most like non electric cars. I'd imagine I definitely think like the electric with commotion engine like the hybrid

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 motor yeah how often are you doing rallies this year I'm actually taking off the Xtreme 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 Xtreme H. As soon as they come out with the full schedule for Xtreme H, Xtreme E will more than likely be a tag long series. So I'll get back into that stuff once they launch all the season details.

My buddy came on the show two years ago and predicted hydrogen cars blowing up. 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 it'll be my first time 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 like wow

I was just like I cannot like is the car breaking feels weird happening. You know like so there was for me I was just kind of like that was the biggest change It's just you know Being used to hearing everything that's happening with the car. Yes, if you go 200 in a 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, OK, we got to really get used to that. Hmm. Have you heard that race across the US? Is that like more of a sports car?

It's like the fastest person to get from Cali to New York. Yeah, I've seen something like that. That one is so interesting to me. I've never actually followed it, but 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.

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 know 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 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. And they never tell you when that change happens. But yeah, I deserve that. I pulled away. I pulled off so quick. He was like, oh, thanks for pulling over that fast.

I saw him. I mean, he got me on the gun. Yeah. Have you been pulled over?, he got me on the gun. Have you been pulled over? I have about five speeding tickets. OK. 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 a trailer, towards everyone else's driving 80 around you're 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, they only hit like 65. I think the u-hauls. Yeah, and everyone else is going 80 to 90 past you I know and you're just like this makes a trip feel 10 times

Turned into a six and a half hour trip from Cali. Yeah it's crazy. Yeah that sucked. How was Scotland? I've always wanted to go to Scotland. Scotland's good. Scotland I've actually been to twice now, 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. It was about like 700 feet into the ground, I would say. It was pretty insane. 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 outside track on the outside of it. And Scotland is crazy because the weather is never reliable. One day on a Saturday we raced, it was super sunny. Sunday we got to the track at like 7am. 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 medevac 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? Good amount?

Well so it's actually aired on TV internationally. Oh wow. 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, it would come on the channels at like 11 p.m. or like 2 a.m. So like one episode for 30 minutes, the other episode for 30 minutes for like a Saturday Sunday.

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. Someone like Tanner Faust, who is also rally cars, off-road. So I was racing against the top-level drivers.

Wow. 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 20, 30 years,

and it's like NASCAR was what was popular. We're kind of in that phase where I personally think NASCAR is fading out. You still see a lot of brands spending insane amount of money there. But there is, like I said, the drifting community is growing and now we have F1 in Miami, F1 in Vegas, F1 in Texas, so I think we're starting to get more of 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 not packed. I went to a NASCAR race and I watched the truck series and there was very few people in the audience and I'm just like it's crazy to me like wow and like the money that the brands are spending they're like millions and millions of dollars like easily seven

million for like a tier two sponsor NASCAR. Holy 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 motor sports where they are doing larger numbers like drifting is second to NASCAR in like their following and so or sorry no drifting is second most followed on social media and that's with all American motor sports so like IMSA like sports car racing that kind of stuff Wow but like our audience is Millennials right like we're on social media

Watching on live streams 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 Yeah, I definitely would say like not as much money as like an IMSA or an f1 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 Oh you did yeah with 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 like 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 DoorDash, for example, it was just crazy to see how fast this sport's growing. I just went to treatment and pickle down the street here in Vegas, and the thing's packed. To get a bay, 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. Was that the one with Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi? Or was that a different pickleball event? I'm not sure. Oh, no, no, no. This was different. It's called Celebrity Pickleball Bash.

We had like Terrell Owens, Brandy Chastain. So some fun celebrities. And then we had a few like professional pickleball players. Nice. Was Ben Johns there? 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. I've never like done anything like that so 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 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 yeah feel like there's levels oh yeah for sure yeah not my issue is I'm so tall, so I want to hit everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like dunk them. Yeah, because it's going out, but my instinct is to hit it. Some slams on the ground.

I used to play tennis. Oh, OK, OK. Yeah. You ever play tennis? No, so this was my first time playing. I'm not even good at ping pong. So I was like, I'm going to go on stage and go play pickleball in front of all these people in the theater. And it was like NBA I'm gonna go on stage and go play Pickleball in front of all these people

in the theater. And it was like NBA All-Star weekend. So we were in the theater in San Francisco and I was just like, all right, 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? My tea blast.

So it was fine. I think it was me and Hunter Pence. I don't know. He's a former basketball, no, former baseball player. Baseball guy. Yeah. And so him and I were teammates. He's very competitive. He definitely held most of the weight for our team. 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 against Brandi Chastain and also Uriah, who was like a former UFC... Uriah Hall? Yeah, he was on the show. Yeah, so that's who I was playing against. Like Brandi just honestly like bullied me like so bad. Like she was just like, we're winning this. Well, you probably had really fast reaction time, right? I'm just like, we're winning Wow. I've been working with them. This is going to be year four working with them. So we are actually, we do a lot with their recruiting team. 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 and the Air Force and the military, like one team, one goal type situation.

So I've been fortunate enough to do insane things with them. I went fluent in F-16 with them with the Thunderbirds pulled 9.1 G's That's the fastest jet right? Yes I did some canine training with them. I have worked with them on doing some like ground training stuff with their Team that goes in with the other other military when they're going into a place or a base and they're not allowed to bring any guns, they will be the people protecting everyone

as far as training chokeholds and self-defense, that kind of stuff. 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 plane that's impressive I can't even change a tire on a car so very book to book when it comes to how they do things which is like similar to our race team yeah my tire changers similar concept just to their airplane 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 and I'm not I don't have my license for my private pilots license but I have about like 45 hours 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? 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 offer. So we went and 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. So I did a tandem jump, and I honestly

would love to go again and do skydiving, and I want to go get certified. Dan, you liked it that much? I had so much fun. I love adrenaline rushing things. The concept of it could go wrong fast, I think, is similar to anything else that we do. And as long as you're prepared, you

kind of limit that fear of it. But I'm definitely gonna be going and jumping Wow So you weren't shitting your pants during that I was 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, take another step. And I was like, what? But for me, it was more just the thought of falling out before I was ready.

You know what I mean? But there was really no time to be ready. He was ready, so that didn't matter. But once you jumped out of the plane, it was so peaceful. I find it was very similar to just riding a Harley or riding a motorcycle. You have a lot of wind in your face. So it was peaceful, though. It was so cool.

Once you deploy the shoe, you're kind of just floating around. We did some tricks. We did a backflip. Oh my god. We did some spins. On your first jump, you did a backflip? 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. That's an elective? Yeah, in the Air Force you can choose like your electives. The only role 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 do a, like the training facility is insane. You know, like there's 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.

But yeah, there was like a group of students up there and that was their elective. It was skydiving. First time by yourself. Cause 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, 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, I was like, wow, I could use this for my own benefit. The facilities are so nice. As far as the electives, they have so many electives.

It's so focused around your physical fitness. I'm so into that stuff and just learning about the body and that kind of stuff. They have pools and high dive jumping and just a lot of cool like features simulators that will simulate 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're 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 okay 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 I'm actually my color went first so like everything turned black and white damn and for my brother. He he immediately recognized it He just felt very light-headed 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 not.

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 have a full 360 screen that goes around so I can see everything left to right. And that's how we train because like we're talking about like those tire budgets are not cheap. So it's very very accurate. It helps with training muscle memory,

just getting used to 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? That's a good question. I would say St. Louis two years ago I qualified second which was like the highest I've ever qualified okay 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, that's not that many right yeah So with the pro level you you do eight a year.

So I go to almost all of them because I own the team with my brother. And so I'm there managing everything. I do all the sponsorship side of things, so making sure partners are happy, that kind of stuff. But outside of those four Formula Drift events, we also drive. And there's a grid life event that's

like 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. 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 of the team too. Yeah, so my brother and I own it together. We have two cars, obviously, but we do all the sponsorship funding. 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. So in Formula Drift, he's the youngest licensed prospect driver 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 gonna have a pro

driver come on the other teams so two semis traveling to eight major like 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 non-stop like every single day that I wake up is Dedicated to growing like my own personal brand as well as my career in motorsports. 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 can people find you? As far as what's next, you never really know. Going into 2025, I will be driving in Formula Drift and Prospec, possibly dipping my feet into some more off-road stuff. I have a huge partnership announcement coming out, so I'm super stoked. And I'll be signing with an energy drink, which I think is super awesome.

Nice. But I just continue pushing, growing the personal brand, driving in all these different types of motorsports. And they can find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook at Amanda Sorensen. Perfect. Check her out guys. Thanks for coming on. That was fun. See you guys. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you. Bet MGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. From puck drop to the final shot, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook Born in Vegas.

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