Background and career
Bradley Reed Sorenson (born February 5, 1986) is an American former professional stock car racing driver and spotter. He last competed part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 27 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Premium Motorsports, the Nos. 74/77 Camaro for Spire Motorsports, and the No. 7 Camaro for Tommy Baldwin Racing. As of 2026, he works as a spotter for Kaulig Racing's No. 11 of Josh Williams in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Sorenson began competing in NASCAR in 2004 as a Busch Series driver; he has four wins in the series. His first Cup start came in 2005 before moving to a full schedule the following year.
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 thirteen out of 25 races, southeastern championships and breaking track records in the process. In 1999, he won thirty out of the fifty 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 the age seventeen. He caught his big break by signing a driver development contract with Chip Ganassi Racing.
In 2004, Sorenson won his first ARCA race, at Michigan International Speedway, in the No. 77 Sherwin-Williams Dodge. He finished in the top-five in all three of his ARCA starts. Sorenson also ran in five NASCAR Busch Series events for Chip Ganassi Racing, and had three top-ten finishes, and a top-five, which was a fourth place finish at Homestead.
Sorenson was named the full-time driver of the No. 41 Discount Tire Company Dodge Intrepid for Ganassi for 2005, 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 Federated Auto Parts 300, he was leading the points race by 51. Sorenson picked up another win at Gateway. He ended the season fourth in points and finished second in the rookie of the year race to Carl Edwards. Towards the end of the season, Sorenson was signed to move up to the Nextel Cup Series to drive the No. 41 Target car full-time. He made his Nextel Cup debut in the 2005 Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500, racing as No. 39, but was involved in a crash and finished 41st. After a failed attempt to qualify for the Dickies 500, he ran in the Ford 400 for Phoenix Racing, where he finished in 28th.
2006 brought on Sorenson's first season as a Nextel Cup Series regular, along with running a full-time driver in the Busch Series. His best finish in the 2006 Nextel Cup season was a fifth place effort at Michigan International Speedway, and he ended the season with five top-ten finishes. He finished 24th in the 2006 points Nextel Cup standings and was fourth in the 2006 Raybestos Rookie of the Year contest with 198 points finishing behind Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Clint Bowyer. He also fell in the Busch Series, dropping from fourth in the standings as a nineteen-year-old the year before to tenth place in 2006.
Sorenson broke his 61-race winless streak in the Busch Series at Gateway International Speedway by leading 95 laps and avoiding late race cautions to win the Busch Gateway 250 in Madison, Illinois. In Cup, he had a career best finish of fourth, at the Coca-Cola 600, and later a third place finish at his home track at Atlanta. Sorenson got his first career pole, at the Allstate 400. Sorenson became the youngest pole winner ever at Indianapolis 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 sixteen laps, and finishing in the fifth place, behind race winner, Tony Stewart. At the end of the 2007 season, he placed 22nd in the final standings, improving two spots from 2006 (although he actually scored fewer points than in his rookie season).
