Reed Sorenson

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Bradley Reed Sorenson

Born	February 5, 1986 (1986-02-05) (age 23)
Hometown	Peachtree City, Georgia
Awards	2003 American Speed Association (ASA) Pat Schauer Memorial Rookies of the Year [1]
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Statistics
Car #, Team	#43 - Richard Petty Motorsports
2008 Sprint Cup Position	32nd
Best Cup Position	22nd - 2007 (NEXTEL Cup)
First Race	2005 Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 (Atlanta)
Wins Top Tens Poles 0 15 1
NASCAR Nationwide Series Statistics
2008 NNS Position	88th
Best NNS Position	4th - 2005 (Busch Series)
First Race	2004 Kroger 200 Presented by Tom Raper RVs (IRP)
First Win	2005 Pepsi 300 (Nashville)
Last Win	2007 Busch Silver Celebration 250 (Gateway)
Wins Top Tens Poles 3 41 2
Statistics current as of November 18, 2008.

Bradley Reed Sorenson (born February 5, 1986, in Peachtree City, Georgia) is a NASCAR driver who currently drives the #43 Air Force/McDonald's Dodge Charger in the Sprint Cup Series for Richard Petty Motorsports.

Contents 1 Early career 2 NASCAR 2.1 2005 2.2 2006 2.3 2007 2.4 2008 2.5 2009 2.5.1 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup results 3 Sprint Cup Career Statistics 4 Nationwide Series Career Statistics 5 References 6 External links

Early career

Sorenson's career started at age six when he began racing quarter-midgets. He won the national championship in 1997. He moved up to Legends cars the following year, winning 13 out of 25 races, southeastern championships and breaking track records in the process. In 1999 he won 30 out of the 50 races in which he competed. He raced in Legends for the next two years and won 84 events.

In 2002, Sorenson began racing in the American Speed Association (ASA), finishing in the top-ten seven out of his eight starts. He became a full-time driver in 2003 and won the highly coveted ASA Pat Schauer Memorial Rookies of the Year award at age 17. He caught his big break by signing a driver development contract with Chip Ganassi Racing, in addition to graduating from Woodward Academy. ^[2]

NASCAR

In 2004, he won his first ARCA race at Michigan International Speedway, and ran in 5 NASCAR Busch Series events for Chip Ganassi Racing. In the five races, Sorenson had 3 top ten finishes, and a top 5, which was a 4th place finish at Homestead.

2005

Sorenson was named the full-time driver of the #41 Discount Tire Company Dodge Intrepid for Ganassi for 2005 NASCAR Busch Series, competing for Rookie of the Year. He won his first Busch Series race at Nashville Superspeedway, winning by more than 14 seconds after starting on the pole and leading 197 out of 225 laps. After the 15th race (Federated Auto Parts 300) he was leading the points race by 51 points. Sorenson picked up another win at Gateway. He ended the season 4th in points and finished 2nd in the Rookie of the Year race to Carl Edwards.

Toward the end of the season he was signed to move up to NEXTEL Cup to drive the 41 Target car full-time. He made his NEXTEL Cup debut in the 2005 Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500, racing as #39, but was involved in a crash and finished 41st. After a failed attempt to500]], he ran in the Ford 400, where he finished the race in 28th.

2006

Reed Sorenson in his 2006 Busch Series car after his car hit the wall.

2006 brought on Reed's first season as a Nextel Cup regular, along with running a full time driver in the Busch Series. It all started with a 29th place finish in the Daytona 500. He had better luck in the Busch Series equivalent, finishing 9th. Reed's best finish in the 2006 Nextel Cup season was a 5th place effort at Michigan International Speedway.

He finished 24th in the 2006 points Nextel Cup standings and finished was the fourth in the 2006 Raybestos Rookie of the Year contest with 198 points finishing behind Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Clint Bowyer.

He managed to finish 10th place in the Busch Series standings with 14 Top 10s and 5 Top 5s. This would mark the end of Reed running full time in the Busch Series.

2007

Reed Sorenson in his 2007 Busch Series car after an accident

In the start of the 2007 season, Sorenson started 25th in the season opener for the NASCAR Busch Series, Orbitz 300. After a disappointing collision with Kasey Kahne, his night ended, and he came home 38th. In his second Daytona 500, Reed marched his way to front after starting 33rd, and finished 13th, besting his former best finish of 29th at Daytona. Three weeks later, he went on to earn his first top 10 finish of the year, coming home 9th at Atlanta. Sorenson scored his career-best finish at Lowe's Motor Speedway, a 4th-place finish; and came home with another top-15 finish at Chicago, where he finished 12th. He broke his 61-race winless streak at Gateway International Speedway by leading 95 laps and avoiding late race cautions to win the Busch Gateway 250 in Madison, Illinois.

On July 28, 2007, during qualifying for the Allstate 400, Sorenson got his first career pole. Sorenson became the youngest pole winner ever at Indianpolis Motor Speedway; at 21 years, 173 days old. He broke a record that stood for 72 years. It was previously held by Rex Mays, who won the pole for the Indianapolis 500 in 1935 at 22 years of age. Sorenson ended up leading 16 laps, and finishing in the 5th place, behind race winner, Tony Stewart. At the end of the 2007 season, Reed placed 22nd in the final standings, improving 2 spots from 2006.

2008

2008 Cup racecar

Sorenson returned to the #41 in 2008, and started the season off well with a 5th place finish in the Daytona 500^[3]. This was the peak of his performances for the season. He got another top ten finish with some late race strategy in a rain shortened New Hampshire race. He was temporarily replaced by Scott Pruett at Infineon Raceway in an attempt to gain points in the owner standings.

Reed has run a limited 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series competing in the Aaron's 312 at Talladega Superspeedway in the Fitz Motorsports #22 Artic Ice car. He got involved in a mid-race wreck that ended his day. He also competed in the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway to defend his win from 2007 in the #40 Fastenal Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge. He was involved in a mid-race wreck that ended his chance at defending his title.

On August 26, 2008 it was announced that the 2008 season will be Sorenson's last season with Ganassi, after signing a multi year contract with Gillett Evernham Motorsports to start the 2009 season.^[4] Sponsorship and car number will be announced at a later date.

November 16th, 2008 brought the end of the 2008 season, Reed placed 32nd in the final standings. This also brought an end to Reed racing full time for Chip Ganassi Racing. In 2009 he will race full time for Gillett Evernham Motorsports in the #10 car. A full time sponsor has not been announced yet, but it has been announced that for 4 races in the 2009 season the Air Force will be the Primary sponsor for 4 races along with being the an associate sponsor for the rest of the season^[5]. More info on sponsorship has been reported to not be announced until after the first of the year.

2009

On January 8th, 2009 Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Holdings announced in principle to form a new NASCAR Sprint Cup team that will be co-owned by Richard Petty, Petty Holdings (owned by majority shareholder Boston Ventures), and Gillett Evernham Motorsports. The new car number will be #43 and will be driven by Sorenson^[6]. It was announced on January 19th, 2009 that with the merger of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Holdings the newly formed team will be known as Richard Petty Motorsports ^[7] Sorenson and teammate Elliott Sadler were sent to the front of the pack during the 2009 Daytona 500 after David Stremme brought out a caution just after they exited pit road. Sadler finished 5th while Sorenson finished 9th.

2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup results

Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	NSC	Points
2009	Richard Petty Motorsports	43	Dodge	DAY 9	CAL 21	LSV 34	ATL 33	BRI 22	MAR 17	TEX	PHO	TAL	RIC	DAR	LOW	DOV	POC	MIC	INF	NHA	DY2	CHI	IND	PO2	GLN	MI2	BR2	AT2	RI2	NH2	DV2	KAN	CA2	LW2	MR2	TL2	TX2	PH2	HOM	'	'

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Sprint Cup Career Statistics

Year	Starts	Wins	Top Fives	Top Tens	Poles	DNF	Start	Finish	Rank	Winnings	Team(s)
2005	2	0	0	0	0	1	18.5	34.5	67*	$137,575	Ganassi; Phoenix
2006	36	0	1	5	0	4	25.6	23.1	24	$3,456,948	Chip Ganassi Racing
2007	36	0	3	6	1	7	24.4	24.4	22	$4,109,229	Chip Ganassi Racing
2008	35	0	1	2	0	2	26.6	28.0	32	$4,316,340	Chip Ganassi Racing
2009	6	0	0	1	0	0	26.0	22.8	29	$966,033	Richard Petty Motorsports
Totals	115	0	5	14	1	14	24.2	26.6	21.4	$12,986,125

• (*)Removed from overall average since he did only ran a few races for the 2005 season.

Nationwide Series Career Statistics

Year	Starts	Wins	Top Fives	Top Tens	Poles	DNF	Start	Finish	Rank	Winnings	Team(s)
2004	5	0	1	3	0	1	13.4	13.0	52	$105,395	Ganassi; Phoenix
2005	35	2	12	19	2	5	12.7	33.7	4	$1,298,527	Ganassi; Phoenix
2006	34	0	5	14	0	9	17.4	19.3	10	$840,039	Chip Ganassi Racing
2007	19	1	2	5	0	7	16.6	22.3	30	$441,060	Chip Ganassi Racing
2008	2	0	0	0	0	2	17.0	29.0	88	$43,165	Chip Ganassi Racing; Fitz Motorsports
2009	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	Richard Petty Motorsports
Totals	95	3	20	41	2	24	15.4	19.5		$2,728,186

References

1. ^ ASA Rookies of the Year
2. ^ Reed Sorenson's Official Bio.
3. ^ Sorenson Finishes Fifth in Daytona 500
4. ^ Sorenson Signs with GEM
5. ^ Air Force lands with GEM, Sorenson on No. 10 car
6. ^ Petty Holdings & Gillett Evernham Motorsports To Form New Team
7. ^ Richard Petty Motorsports born out of GEM merger

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Sorenson"

Categories: 1986 births | American racecar drivers | American Speed Association drivers | Living people | NASCAR drivers | People from Georgia (U.S. state)