Brehanna Daniels grew up playing sports, so it’s no wonder she made it to where she is.
“I think I was like 4 years old when I started playing basketball,” she said.
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In middle school she played four sports: basketball, track, field hockey and soccer.
Competition at such a young age taught her lessons that she still carries with her today.
Lessons like resilience, courage and commitment have helped her make history.
Now at 27, Daniels is NASCAR’s first Black female tire changer.
In 2019, she became the first Black woman to pit in the Daytona 500 and she’s still breaking barriers in the historically white, male-dominated sport.
“I’ve been around a lot of guys before because of the different sports teams I’ve been on, but this was different...it’s a sport that’s known for a lot of white men,” Daniels said.
Daniels’ journey in NASCAR started in 2016, when she was attending Norfolk State University, which is a Historically Black University.
One of her friends approached her about NASCAR coming to the school.
“I was looking at her like ‘Girl, you know I don’t watch NASCAR, what are you telling me this for?’” Daniels said.
At the time, she didn’t even know what a pit stop was.
That same friend showed her a video on YouTube and Daniels was intrigued, so she gave it a chance and went.
Daniels was the only woman in a group of men who tried out for the pit crew team as part of the organization’s “Drive for Diversity” program.
The program is aimed at recruiting and training minority and female racecar drivers and pit crew members.
Daniels impressed and she was invited to the national NASCAR combine, which included more than 20 women, and the rest is history.
“I’m taking this challenge and running with it just so I can be that example so we can get more faces that look like mine,” Daniels said.
But Daniels is not limiting herself to just NASCAR, she’s also an entrepreneur.
She started a clothing line called BRE apparel, which you can see here.