Brehanna Daniels Diversity in the Pit Crew

BREHANNA DANIELS

DIVERSITY IN THE PIT CREW

By Alex Apple In February of 2016, Brehanna Daniels was as far from a racetrack as one could be, playing basketball for Norfolk State University.

On the 29th the Spartans played Howard, and Daniels played a critical role, scoring a career-high 17 points in 27 minutes of action. That moment did not foreshadow the ground-breaking work that lie shortly ahead.

The next year, Daniels made history becoming the first AfricanAmerican woman to work on the pit crew in one of NASCAR’s top three levels, and in 2019, Daniels became one of the first women in NASCAR history to work in the Daytona 500 pits. Her work in a national Series sets her alone as the only such African-American woman to do so.

“I’m doing something that’s not just for myself but it’s much bigger than me,” she said to ABC News after the 2019 season. “I’d like to see NASCAR as multiple faces and not just one.”

That accomplishment made plenty of noise around the motorsports world, yet Daniels might manage to top herself again. She already lists a wide swath of accomplishments, including being on the NBC show, “The Titan Games,” produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

2019 represented another big step for a ‘momma’s girl’ fulfilling her dreams.

Let’s retreat.

Near the end of her basketball career at Norfolk State, a member of the school’s administration approached Daniels about a Drive for Diversity tryout at the school – to which Daniels responded, “Who said I liked NASCAR?”

That statement gets funnier in hindsight considering Daniels went to the pit crew test, showed off her athleticism and later landed a spot with Concord’s Rev Racing. There she received expert training on the ins and outs of pit crew work.

Daniels task became one built around dexterity, speed and concentration. After all, using an impact wrench to hit five lug nuts in 1.5 seconds is no easy task. Unsurprisingly to folks that know Brehanna, she was hitting those lug nuts in around one second just months into her training. Her ascension to pit crew stardom was underway.

Daniels looks back and thinks about how much her mother would smile at the things she’s accomplished. Daniels mother passed away when she was just 14 years old. She never missed a basketball game, and Daniels told The Undefeated, she is quite certain she would not have missed a race either.

“I didn’t always see her face, but I always heard her voice,” Daniels said.

It’s that connection she continues to foster through her daily journaling which can offer a moment of peace after the chaos of a race or practice.

Over the course of her ascension in the NASCAR world, Daniels has embraced the diversity she brings to a sport that yearns for “more faces.” The Drive for Diversity program has brought young talent into the sport that might not have otherwise seen the opportunity. Daniels joined Breanna O’Leary as the first women to pit a car in the seasonopening Daytona 500.

Daniels changed the tires on Cody Ware’s Chevrolet and O’Leary handed the rear. They already formed a synergy working together the previous year at Daytona, but working the biggest race under the brightest lights took their accomplishment to another level.

No one is harder on Daniels than herself and her coach, Phil Horton. The media coverage and acclaim has been an honor for Daniels, but she and Horton are often skeptical of declaring that she has ‘made it.’

Her preparation and dedication to improvement is impressive as she works out several times daily in order to get in both cardio and strength training. She didn’t get on “The Rock’s” NBC show without some serious physical chops.

In two years, the Virginia Beach native went from uncaring about NASCAR and knowing nothing about changing tires to being a leading force in the sport.

Bill Venturini used a largely female crew for his Championship-winning ARCA season in 1987. Daniels looks at her work in NASCAR as larger than herself, realizing that her success – like the success of Venturini’s crew – will pave the way for more women to join and excel in motorsports.

“I was like, ‘let me just try something new, see where it takes me, ’” she told The Undefeated before the 2019 season. “It wasn’t what I expected because when I saw a video of a pit stop, I saw a car. But I didn’t see a car in the gym. So, I’m like, ‘somebody’s got some explaining to do. There’s a lot of equipment laid out everywhere, what’s going on?’”

What’s going on? A dream is coming alive.

“It’s all a dream come true,” Daniels told ESPN after the Daytona 500. “Having God in my corner, every step of the way, anything is possible with Him, and none of this would be possible without Him.”

Photo courtesy of www.nsuspartans.com Norfolk State University Spartans.