KELSEY ROWLINGS

Kelsey has been competing in Formula Drift since 2015 and was the first woman to earn a Formula Drift Pro 2 (now ProSpec) License. However, Kelsey didn’t discover drifting, or any motorsport, until she was 18 years old.

Before heading to college at the University of Florida in 2008, Kelsey convinced her parents she wanted to learn to drive a manual transmission, and a 1997 Nissan 240sx would be a good first car. While earning her English degree and battling a new diagnosis of “Sjogren’s,” an incurable autoimmune disease, she would spend weekends “visiting home” and attending drift events at Orlando Speed World.

Kelsey started competing in 2011, but had never considered it a possible career until 2015, when she earned her professional Formula Drift license and entered Formula Drift Pro 2.

Kelsey qualified for top 16 competition in her very first Formula Drift competition driving her SR powered S14 the lowest horsepower of the entire field of drivers, and she quickly realized that 500 horsepower would not be competitive, so for the 2016 season, she and her team built an S14 powered by a 700hp supercharged Ford 5.0 Ford Aluminator, and it is the only Ford-swapped Nissan in Formula Drift.

Over the past several years of R&D and continuously making improvements, Kelsey has been competing in the same S14 chassis, but in 2024, she upgraded to a new Ford 5.2L engine making 800hp and is feeling competitive and confident heading into the 2026 Formula Drift season.