Two HBCU Women Change NASCAR While Changing Tires

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- — It’s not too often that a gaggle of reporters and fans jostle for position at pit row in a Nascar race just to watch a tire changer. Then again, it’s not too often that the tire changer is a woman. And it had never been an African-American woman.

Brehanna Daniels was beaming after working her first pit stop during Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, saying that she was nervous, that she didn’t want to mess up and that she wasn’t used to feeling the eyes of so many people observing what she does.

She understood why, though. She knew the magnitude of what she was doing, why it was more than just changing tires, and why a sliver of spotlight shined on her.

“It feels great,” she said, as fellow team members and friends of Nascar driver Ray Black Jr. high-fived and fist-pumped her with racecars still motoring around the track. “It’s breaking down barriers, opening doors for other people who look like me.”

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