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VOL. 53 ISSUE 1 JANUARY 12, 2016 P105 they had that seat slated for one of them, but Rich convinced them to let me be the teammate," Sorensen explained. That season he scored his first top-10 AMA 250GP finishes. The next year Oliver launched Team Oliver/ Yamaha with Sorensen as his teammate. It proved to be a breakthrough season for Sorensen. Seemingly out of nowhere he won the '94 Brainerd AMA 250 Grand Prix race. Oddly enough he'd frac- tured a bone in his leg a couple of weeks earlier in a crash at Mid-Ohio. He was determined to try to race Brainerd even though he didn't think he'd do well. "When I hung off the left side it hurt and I wasn't totally comfortable, but I could ride," Sorensen said. "Rich got a bad tire and fell off and I was in a pack of about five riders and it was a big drafting battle down that long front straight." It all came down to the last lap. Sorensen and Jon Cornwell collided and Sorensen was able to stay up- right as Cornwell crashed. Sorensen gathered it back up and held off Nick Ienatsch and Al Salaverria for his first national victory. He scored a slew of additional top finishes that season, including podiums at Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca. In '95 he and Rich teamed up again, but things be- gan to change between them. Sorensen was no longer simply the protégé, but now a true contender. So- rensen explained, "Even though we were still friends, I could tell at that point I needed to move on if I was going to grow as a racer." Sorensen ended up signing with Erion Racing Honda, but a practice crash at Daytona broke his arm badly. "I had a contract with Kevin Erion and he basi- cally said, 'You can't ride for me anymore,' and walked over the contract. So I was home busted up and I didn't know what I was going to do." Sorensen bounced around with several teams the next couple of seasons, even racing in England for a time before landing with importer James Siddal's World Sports Yamaha in 1998. It proved to be a fruitful relationship. With World Sports in '98, Sorensen was immediately a championship contender taking three wins, and he finished a close third in the championship to Roland Sands and Kurtis Roberts. Finally, in 1999 it all clicked and in his eighth season of racing professionally Sorensen scored his first AMA 250 Grand Prix Championship with a dominating six wins and three additional podiums. In 2000 it came full circle for Sorensen and he battled his former mentor Oliver all season for the title. Oliver won most of the battles, but in the end Sorensen won the 2000 cham- pionship by virtue of relentlessly consistent finishes. After taking sixth in the series in '01, Sorensen came back in 2002 and scored his third AMA 250GP title, this time with Team Stargel Aprilia. He said he knew after the first time riding the Aprilia, a year-old GP machine, that he was on a rocketship. "We had it tuned pretty mildly and we were still 10 miles per hour faster than the Yamahas." Sorensen was finally ready and had the bike to take on Oliver in a battle for the title. Unfortunately, Oliver crashed at Daytona (where Sorensen won). Oliver would come back later in the year and win races, but wasn't a factor for the championship. Sorensen used his first Daytona 250GP victory as a springboard to his third AMA 250GP Championship that season. Oliver came back strong midseason and won at Pikes Peak. That set up what Sorensen would call one of his proudest moments at the next race at Road America where he finally beat Oliver head to head, with both at the top of their game. At the end of 2002 he raced his one and only Grand Prix at Valen- cia. He qualified 27th and finished 21st. The 2003 season was plagued by injury and bike issues and while Sorensen still managed a slew of podium finishes, no one was touching Oliver that year. In '04 the Stargel team decided to put Sorensen on a Yamaha Superbike, but they missed most of the season putting the program together and while Sorensen scored some solid finishes in a talent-filled Superbike class, he says the feeling wasn't the same. "By then I started looking at my life beyond racing," Sorensen said. "I started working in the wine depart- ment at Whole Foods and eventually worked my way up to being a buyer. That was Sorensen's entry into the wholesale wine business, which he still does today. In 2011 he overcame colon cancer. He was re- cently married and still enjoys riding his dirt bike and attending west coast road races as a fan. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives