Toni Breidinger is a 26-year-old competing in the NASCAR Truck Series, with hopes of making it to the top-tier Cup Series. The economic reality of motorsports is that it’s ‘pay to play’ which gives rich kids a massive advantage. A driver cannot improve without adequate seat time, but that costs serious money. Great young drivers without funding simply don’t advance up the ladder, and series become Formula Rich-Kid.
How does a California girl even end up in NASCAR Trucks? Like many young racers, Toni started in karts at age 9 and competed for 6 years. The only injury of her career happened in karts when future F1 driver Logan Sargeant crashed into her at the CalSpeed Karting Center. She moved up to the USAC Midget Series and won the series championship at 17. After high school, Toni switched to stock cars and moved to North Carolina where she’s attempted to fund her racing career through her modelling career. This year, she became the first NASCAR driver to be included in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
Breidinger understands the economic reality of racing, and balances her racing role with modeling duties as brand ambassador for Coach and Victoria’s Secret. She’s partnered with female-focused brands that are real to her, products she actually uses. None of her crew or competition can claim that. In a way, she’s taken the disadvantages that women in motorsports face and leveraged it.
While all her male counterparts are fighting over the male-dominated brands, it leaves plenty of money on the table for Toni. As the first Arab-American woman ever to compete in a NASCAR sanctioned event, she’s already making history. She pitched 818 Tequila, a brand owned by wealthy socialite Kendall Jenner (daughter of Kris & Bruce Jenner from ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’) and became 818’s first sports sponsorship. Now, traditional sponsors are noticing and Breidinger has brought Dave & Buster’s and Raising Cane’s into her roster of sponsors.
The notoriety of national campaigns for these companies has raised Toni’s profile helping her to serve as inspiration for the next generation of girls at the race track showing them that femininity doesn’t hold a woman back from being a race car driver.
Right now, Breidinger’s life is back-to-back flights from New York Fashion Week to the Daytona International Speedway. But she is committed to pursuing her dream, and has a five-year plan to race in the NASCAR Cup Series. It’s not an impossible goal either as Toni finds herself at the intersection of motorsport and American pop culture.
Very cool story.
Yeah, I hope Toni progresses well in her chosen discipline of NASCAR racing.
Keep on Truckin’, Toni!
She’s got the skills and the funding… she’s got a glorious future ahead of her.