{"id":15910,"date":"2018-04-07T15:03:18","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T20:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=15910"},"modified":"2018-04-07T15:03:18","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T20:03:18","slug":"brehanna-daniels-becomes-the-first-african-american-female-to-pit-a-vehicle-at-texas-motor-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/07\/brehanna-daniels-becomes-the-first-african-american-female-to-pit-a-vehicle-at-texas-motor-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"Brehanna Daniels becomes the first African-American female to pit a vehicle at Texas Motor Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Brehanna Daniels<\/strong> became the first African-American female to pit a vehicle at Texas Motor Speedway<\/a> during today\u2019s My Bariatric Solutions 300<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Brehanna Daniels. (Photo by Blaine Ohigashi\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 5-foot-5 point guard who averaged 13.9 points per game as a senior at Norfolk (Va.) University is now trying to make a living as a member of a pit crew in NASCAR.  She served as a tire carrier on Stephen Leicht<\/strong>\u2018s No. 55 Toyota for JP Motorsports.<\/p>\n

Daniels, who made history last year at Dover International Speedway when she became the first African-American woman to pit a vehicle in a NASCAR national series race, entered the NASCAR Rev Racing Drive for Diversity Pit Crew program in 2017.<\/p>\n

After training for several months at Rev Racing in Concord, N.C., and then at Xcalibur Pit School in neighboring Mooresville before she made her debut on April 8, 2017.  Short a tire carrier, Daniels was inserted into the lineup during an ARCA race at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville, where she became the first African-American female to go over the wall in any national racing series.<\/p>\n

Prior to today\u2019s race, Daniels met with the media.  Here is what she had to say:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Brehanna Daniels. Photo by Mike Haag \/ Raceday San Antonio<\/p><\/div>\n

On whether she\u2019s seen more African-American fans come out to the races \u2026<\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot more African-Americans come out during the Fontana race in California. I think some of them actually asked what pit stall I was going to be in because they were walking down (before the race) and were like, \u2018can I get a picture with you, girl? We were just looking for you. Can we get a picture?\u2019 \u2026 It touches my heart and warms my heart to see that times are changing and I\u2019m glad to be a part of that change.\u201d<\/p>\n

On being a role model for aspiring African-Americans or females \u2026<\/em>
\n\u201cI think God put me in this position \u2026 and that I should be this example. It\u2019s tough being the very first to do something, it\u2019s going to come with a lot of things. But I think God put me in this position. I\u2019m a strong person, so I\u2019m enjoying the challenge and enjoying it every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

On whether she and her family are NASCAR fans now \u2026<\/em>
\n\u201cI\u2019m bringing (NASCAR) to everybody I know. Literally, nobody in my family was a NASCAR fan. The only time we\u2019d ever watch NASCAR was when we were looking for a basketball or football game on TV. But now I\u2019m watching all the races now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Information and quotes courtesy of TMS Media Relations<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FORT WORTH, Texas \u2013 Brehanna Daniels became the first African-American female to pit a vehicle at Texas Motor Speedway during today\u2019s My Bariatric Solutions 300. The 5-foot-5 point guard who averaged 13.9 points per game as a senior at Norfolk (Va.) University is now trying to make a living as a member of a pit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[540],"tags":[576,575,16,181,21],"class_list":["post-15910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-raceday","tag-brehanna-daniels","tag-my-bariatric-solutions-300","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-texas-motor-speedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/IMG_9849.jpg?fit=4032%2C3024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-48C","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15910"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15916,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910\/revisions\/15916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}