When Norfolk State University offered Brehanna Daniels the chance to walk on to the basketball team, she did not respond with the gratitude typically expected from a recruit scraping for a roster spot. “Respectfully,” she told them, “I’m too good to be a walk-on.” It was a statement of fact, not arrogance. She stepped into an open gym, played her way onto the squad, and secured a full scholarship by the next morning.
That moment of self-assurance predates her historic tenure in motorsports. Long before she became the first African American woman to operate as a tire changer in a NASCAR Cup Series pit crew, Daniels had already cultivated the mindset required for pit road: calm under pressure, certain of her worth, and unwilling to shrink to fit external expectations.
Growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, sports dictated the rhythm of Daniels’ early life. She played basketball, ran track, and placed eighth nationally in the pentathlon as a young athlete. However, her path was not linear. During high school, her mother died of breast cancer, a loss that altered the trajectory of her life and complicated her journey to college. Daniels rebuilt, piecing her way forward through junior college stops before landing at Norfolk State, where she majored in communications and played point guard for the Spartans from 2014 to 2016.
Her transition to NASCAR was not a childhood dream realized but a opportunity seized. While balancing basketball, classes, and an internship producing highlight packages for the athletic department, Daniels was approached by Tiffany Sykes, who worked in the Norfolk State athletic department. Sykes suggested she attempt out for the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program, which was visiting campus to recruit potential pit crew members. Daniels did not grow up around the sport and knew little about pit crews, but she attended the tryout anyway.
Composure When the Crew Falls Short
When Daniels arrived at her first tryout in 2016, Phil Horton, the pit crew coach for the Drive for Diversity Crew Member Development program, noticed her immediately. Horton cited her previous athletics experience and exceptional hand speed as key ingredients to her success. He described her as raw but confident and composed in a way that stood out on day one. Her background as a point guard translated well to the pit wall; This proves a position that thrives in chaos, requiring quick decisions and poise when the pace turns frantic.
On her first race day, Daniels walked into the track dressed in all black, fully aware that she did not look like what many spectators expected to notice. In the bathroom, while pulling on her fire suit, a woman stopped doing her makeup to request if Daniels was a driver. When Daniels identified herself as a tire changer, the woman hugged her and thanked her for being in the sport. Both nearly cried.
The day presented immediate challenges. Her tire carrier did not show up, a situation that could have rattled a newcomer. Instead, Daniels locked in. She relied on her training and the certainty that she could handle more than what had been planned. “I finished my side before the front was even done,” she said. She became a tire changer for ARCA driver Thad Moffit at Toledo Speedway in Ohio with Breanna O’Leary, pitted in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series for Cody Ware, and pitted in the Xfinity Series for Mike Harmon.
The First Female Duo on Pit Road
Daniels’ breakthrough culminated at the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, where she changed tires for Rick Ware Racing and Ray Black Jr., driver of the No. 51 car. The race was televised live on NBC. Daniels was one of two females to pit the race, another NASCAR first. Former Alcorn State softball player Breanna O’Leary, another Drive for Diversity recruit and Daniels’ roommate, changed tires on the same team. Together, they made history as the first female duo to work a pit crew in the sport’s top series.
Now 32, Daniels remains active in the sport, with a career spanning the ARCA Menards Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and the NASCAR Cup Series. Her visibility matters, but the disposition of her character made her capable of making history to begin with. It is the confidence to say no when something falls beneath her, the discipline to back that confidence up, and the calm to maintain moving when others might fold. Some athletes spend years waiting for the world to tell them who they are. Daniels never seems to have needed that. NASCAR just gave her another place to prove it.
As more diverse athletes consider careers behind the scenes in motorsports, what other roles on the pit wall do you think are ready for a similar transformation?






