DUSTIN SORENSON CHAMPIONSHIP CAMPAIGN

WORDS BY ASHLEY ZIMMERMAN

PHOTOS BY BUCK MONSON

THERE ISN’T MUCH argument that can fight the statement that as a race fan, if you fancy dirt track race cars with fenders, the Midwest offers a host of opportunities to see exciting racing on any level spanning from the IMCA to DIRTcar to WISSOTA and the USMTS. Modifieds on dirt truly flourishes in the heart of the heartland each and every summer and where the USMTS is concerned, the series boasts some rather large paydays and a lucrative points championship to accompany their forty race schedule.

While the options to compete against the best of the best in modified racing can seem endless on any given Saturday night, Minnesota’s Dustin Sorenson has had the USMTS on his radar since he have been some of the best advice your dad has offered to you as your career in racing has grown? Anything you would pass along to other drivers? could say the word racecar. As a second generation modified driver, Sorenson had only one decision to make growing up, racing or hockey. When it came to the type of racing, watching his father pilot a modified throughout his childhood would make his decision one without contemplation, it was always going to be a modified.

It’s this kind of lightning close precision that earned Sorenson a win at the Dairyland Showdown in Fountain City, Wisconsin back in May of this season.

Sorenson took it right down to the wire at the end and finally secured his first USMTS championship officially on the final night of the season at 81 Speedway in Kansas. Dirt Empire caught up with him in the final month of the season before he knew officially that everything was about to change in his career and he was going to be $100,000 richer. We know now how the story ends but Sorenson wasn’t yet a USMTS champion when we chatted.

Dirt Empire: Let’s start from the beginning of sorts, as a driver who’s following in the footsteps of your father, growing up, was there anything that stood in your way or made you question if you wanted to pursue racing?

Dustin Sorenson: No, not really, other than hockey was a big part of my life when I was really young. I kind of had to make a decision between hockey and racing for which direction I wanted to go, but after high school I was leaning towards racing, so that’s where I went.

DE: Would you say your dad’s racing career and success inspired your racing dreams and goals?

DS: One hundred percent. When I was little, watching him race the USMTS races was my favorite thing. Since my career started he has been my crew chief, we fight all the time [he laughs] but I definitely wouldn’t be where I am without him. He’s really good and we work really well together.

DE: With your father having been your crew chief throughout your career, coming to the close of a season as successful as this, what has it meant to you to have him so intimately in your corner and a part of your success?

DS: I think it’s really cool because it’s something that I think he really, really wants, too, so it’s huge.

DE: IF you win the championship, who do you think will celebrate harder?

DS: I have to think about that, probably not tearing your stuff up. Especially this year, I’ve come a long way with that aspect in racing, making sure that you’re finishing races, especially when you’re racing for points, not up there in the wall and just consistently finishing.

DE: Is there anything you did during the off season to prepare differently for this season that you could attribute to the success you’ve had in 2022?

DS: No, not really. We were really doing there at the end of last season, so I had a lot of confidence going into the early part of this season. I think I won a lot or almost half of the races in the last couple months of the season in 2021. Then over winter just the same thing, we went through the cars, tore them completely apart, actually had them both at Mars and put them both on the jig and put them back together.

DE: Do you feel like you learned any sort of valuable lessons in the 2021 season that kind of gave you a push to be able to get to the next level? Was there something that finally clicked?

DS: I don’t think it was just an overnight thing that clicked. It was kind of the whole season racing with the USMTS; it helped me out racing against those guys every night, it was huge for me.

DE: You work a full-time job and the USMTS schedule is quite busy, how do you balance how competitive the schedule is?

DS: It’s tough. I work on my car at night, just my dad and I at the shop. I have some guys who help me at the racetrack but they work full time jobs so it’s only on the weekends.

DS: [he laughs] I don’t know, I guess I don’t really know, I’ll be really excited, but I think if I win he’ll be really excited, I think it’ll be tough to tell. What I do know is that my buddy Neil Eckhart, who passed away last fall, would be more excited than anybody if he was still here.

DE: Having someone like your dad with experience in your corner, what

DE: If racing came with do overs, is there anything you’d go back to change?

DS: [he laughs] This season, yeah, I’m thinking of Humboldt where we got into Terry Phillips, spun out, and had to go to the back and that kind of hurt for points. I think the biggest race that I wish I could go back and change something would be Saturday of the Jamboree last year. Instead of redrawing I took a challenge to start. I think it was ninth for an extra $10,000. I got the lead and led for a while and then lost it to Jake ONeil on a restart. But, it would have been pretty cool to win that.

DE: Currently you have a very slim point lead in the USMTS standings as the year closes to an end, do you feel like the gap has ever been big enough to take any of the pressure off?

DS: No, it’s never been that big enough for me to feel like I have enough of a lead, I definitely wish it was bigger. I think Tanner is currently only about 82 or 84 points behind me. I’ve definitely been watching it closely. I don’t feel any comfort. He runs good every night so the pressure is definitely on.

DE: After becoming a strong competitor on the USMTS series, what would you say sets the series apart from others in the US and what makes the series challenging?

DS: I think the payout the last few years is what makes it the best series. I mean there are a lot of good drivers in UMP, WISSOTA, and IMCA, too but we’re the only tour that pays as much as it does where you can make some money at it. I wish everybody would come to the USMTS races because I want to race against the best of the best.

DE: If winning the championship with the USMTS opens any doors for your future, what would you like to see them be?

DS: I’m not sure, I mean obviously late models are a lot bigger stage, it seems like they have a lot bigger fan base, so maybe go do something there. I’d still like to keep racing modifieds because that’s what all of my home tracks are and that’s what I grew up doing. But I don’t know, whatever opportunities I get, I guess we’ll do whatever makes the most sense.

DE: Since we are rounding out the season, what are your top moments of the 2022 season and why?

DS: The first race of the year at Rocket Raceway Park I tore up my car in the B main and then we were scrambling to get it back together for the feature. So I ended up tearing up my car in the B main and still winning the B main, it was all sheet metal damage. The deck lid was hanging off of it, we were scrambling to get it all back together for the feature and then the lights went out in the feature before us on the track so that gave us extra time to get it all back together and then started 13th in the feature and ended up winning so that was really cool after the hectic night we had in practice night before. The USMTS win at Fountain City, the track is called Mississippi

Thunder Speedway, that was cool, it was a $10,000 to win and it’s one of my home tracks so that was pretty fun. I started pretty far back in that one, too. The win at Cedar Lake. It was USMTS. I started eighth in that race and won. I think that’s three, so a few weeks ago at the Labor Day race at Deer Creek Speedway, I started fourth and Jim Chisum who you’ll probably be interviewing the next year because he’s going to be really good, he started inside of me in third, we swapped the lead seven times and both led twenty one laps, and he beat me by only a tenth of a second, that was just a really fun race back and forth like that. Probably the last one that comes to mind is the USMTS race at Ogilvie. I also started around eighth or so, just really deep there and was able to work my way up and win there also.

DE: What will winning your first USMTS championship mean to you? How long has something like this been on your bucket list?

DS: I never really thought at this age, at 21, that I’d be able to win a USMTS championship. We didn’t even really plan to run the USMTS series last year, we kind of just ended up going by that because it made sense for us to go, but then we finished so strongly last year we thought that if we kept going we had a chance, so that was the plan. I don’t think anyone really thought that it would happen, but it would definitely be the coolest thing ever if I did, I mean just being able to win $100,000 at 21 would be pretty special.

DE: If at the end of the season you have secured the points championship, how will you use or would like to use this momentum going into next season?

DS: I don’t know, I guess we’ll see what happens, see what kind of opportunities, if any are given over the winter. If you can make pretty good money running modifies and the USMTS schedule is only 40 or so races long, we have to do what makes sense for us.

DE: What have been some of the key contributing factors that you have relied on or made a priority to enable you to stay consistently at the top this season?

DS: I think everything is. Everyone is so good nowadays, you have to be up to par. Our race cars are awesome, we’ve got two of them from MB customs and I have confidence that either car will be competitive any night, our engines come from Action Race Engines and they run great every night and whenever I feel like I need a fresh one they get me one right away. The setup even, I have my dad if I have any questions and it’s huge to have him help me out.

DE: What do you do to help yourself recover from a bad race weekend and not let it continue to impact your season?

DS: I just try to forget about it and just keep running as good as you can every night. I mean, maintenance is huge. It’s making sure that you don’t have any DNFs, making sure nothing breaks. Just making sure all your stuff is good and there’s nothing stupid that’s gonna happen that’s gonna cost you points is a huge part of what I look at.

DE: If you had a younger fan inquiring with you about the best way to follow their dreams in your footsteps, what would you tell them?

DS: I would say ask questions. The older guys with more experience know a lot more than what you do starting out and definitely listen to what people have to say. If you don’t have someone you can immediately ask questions of, ask questions around the pits, make a lot of friends, you don’t have to immediately go up and ask for help, just stand next to them, talk to them, make friends.