How NASCAR Driver Toni Breidinger Went From Delivering Groceries to Modeling for Victoria’s Secret

0:00I know how much they're giving my male teammate and to me it's not even like a quarter of them out. Today, we're talking to Toni Breidinger, the only woman racing NASCAR full-time, on how she built one of the most powerful personal brands in racing. There's like brands that want to say that they're supporting a female athlete just to be like with the times, but they're not actually giving the same amount of dollar support that they would give to a male counterpart. People are offering you like six figures to join OnlyFans and you're like, absolutely not. I also don't want to sexualize my uniform and my sport because I feel like the guys don't have to do that.

0:31I didn't have the funding behind me, but I was like, I'm just going to move out, try to make connections with whoever. And I would just do like Instacart during the days and send out my cold emails. If you don't have a sponsor, you can't race. That's how it works. Yeah, you can be an amazing driver, but like without partners, you're not going to go anywhere. Hey guys, I'm Toni Breidinger and welcome to The Burnouts. I want to dive into like nine years old. You start racing. Was it go-karting you started out with? How did you get into it originally? My dad just saw an advertisement for go-kart classes and I was at like the age where I was trying everything.

1:04So I was doing like gymnastics, soccer, piano classes. Nothing was really like hitting for me. And then I tried to go-kart and I fell in love with it. I just loved that sense of independence. I feel like I was also kind of like a scrawnier kid too. I wasn't very athletic. So I felt like I felt like even to like everyone else. Like I felt like in a go-kart, like I was just run you over. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, guys, watch out. And were there other girls or like, Like what did it look like between guys and girls? Ever since I started racing, it's always been male dominated, but I started racing with my twin sister.

1:34So I feel like having her by my side, I didn't really feel like that growing up because I always had a female alongside with me. So now you've talked about your sister's an engineer and you're the first woman in NASCAR. What was the split when you were like, okay, I'm going to go professional. You moved across the country at 18 to North Carolina. When do you guys doing this together? Is it competitive or is it like, hey, I know that this is a hobby for me. Now I'm going to go do this as my career. What is that conversation between you two like? Ever since I got in a go-kart, I always just knew that I wanted to be a race car driver and I took it so seriously from the get-go.

2:05And I'm sure my parents thought it was just going to be a phase. I feel like my sister took it very seriously too, but we have very different personalities, which is funny because we're twins. But in high school, she always knew she wanted to go to college and she was very into like making sure she doesn't miss any school for races. I'm like, oh, miss school for race? Sure. Like I'll miss like however many days. and I always knew that I wanted to pursue racing and you know not go the college route. I feel like once I kind of hit high school that was kind of that pivotal point of like okay I'm gonna move to North Carolina once I graduate high school and try to wing this thing.

2:36What did it look like when you were in high school? So are you going to races? Do you see that you have a winning streak or something like that? Yeah. What was that inflection point? So there's basically a motorsports ladder system and there's so many different ways to go about it but I started racing in go-karts and And then eventually I went to what we call like grassroots level of racing. So it's very entry level. So I did local races around Southern California, like Central California. And then once you kind of start winning locally, then you kind of travel to national races. And the East Coast is the hub for NASCAR.

3:05So I kind of knew that's kind of where I needed to be eventually. What did your parents think when you said, I want to go professional on this? And how does it work for getting paid? Is it like you win a race and then you make money? For my parents, they were always very supportive. My mom's my biggest cheerleader. my dad's a little bit more realistic but I was always so lucky because I always knew that I could pursue anything that I wanted to pursue they were always so supported. From the financial standpoint motorsports is very expensive at like the lower levels you'll get winning money and stuff like that but it's not near.

3:34How much is it? I mean like in go-karts you'd win like a couple hundred bucks or something like that with your kids and I was like oh my god I'm rich but I mean once you get up through like the rings and you start like making like purse money and it's a more significant amount but motorsports is still so expensive that's why it's so like sponsor driven you see so many logos in the sport because it takes takes a lot of bucks for us we like to break down kind of the business behind different industries like how much does it cost to kind of enter into the sport and what does that look like so i would say to get through the sport there's so many different ways to go about it and you don't i mean for me like when i started racing go-karts my dad was my mechanic and we owned all our own stuff but i also knew if i wanted to pursue nascar i remember when I was in high school, I was just like Googling it because I didn't have any family in the sport prior.

4:19So I didn't really know much about the sport. I just knew that I wanted to be a race car driver. So I remember I was Googling it one day and I saw like it took like millions to race. And I was like, oh my God. Millions? No, literally millions. I was in high school at this point. I'm like a million bucks is like insane. I'm not surprised at all. My sister and brother-in-law are both professional horseback riders and it is a crazy sport. And as you like go up through the ranks, it's just like more money and more money. Is it the cars? Like what is it? like the car cost? So it's the cars, but also like the parts and the team.

4:47I mean, and there's like some crazy fuel stuff, right? Isn't there, what was the scandal where someone like stole someone else's fuel or something? So I mean, everything just costs money, like with like fuel tires. When we're racing, like the races are like two hours, maybe more at some points, like you're, you know, using tires, you're doing pit stops, you have like your pit crew, and then you're traveling with all these people. We charter like planes. So it's like a music tour, but like for motorsports and we're all just like traveling. So what is the difference between all of these different cars?

5:15So basically I drive for Toyota. So that's our manufacturer for our team. And my team I drive for is a Toyota development team. So I have four other teammates and we all have our own crew chief, car chief and mechanics on the car. So we all have five people solely working on our car. And then at the racetrack, we also have our pit crew. So we have like the people like that change the tires, the fuel guys, the jack man. And then you also have your spotter which your spotter is your eyes around the racetrack so they'll kind of like communicate to you during the race so you have like that like that's like your core crew around you on a race weekend so yeah it's like the cost is kind of like you know you're paying for their salary plus you have the cost of the truck drivers and like the fuel and everything it takes to like transport a race car and a you know like semi even when you're racing there's people at the shop behind the scenes that people don't even like know kind of like the structure at least how I run my business is I'll have my partners who support me and then I'll pay my team and they'll like provide like the car the team and the resources got it and the partners are sponsors yes yeah so partners are sponsors so like when you see that I have like Sunoco on my race car like Celsius on my race car those are my partners and I'll bring them and like the dollars to the team and say hey like I have xyz amount of money and that's what it is to race and to go out and get those sponsors are you having to pitch them is Toyota pitching them yeah so I so back in the day it was solely just me pitching them now I have a team around me that helps me with that but I spent a lot of hours back in my day just pitching like I said when I was in high school and I saw how much it was I was like oh my god I need sponsors for this so I remember just googling like how to make like a pitch deck and I was just like sending cold emails all the time no way okay walk me through you're in high school you want to get sponsors what did you do like how did you make the pitch deck how did you approach people yeah it was really just like googling stuff like I didn't really know who to ask if there wasn't like a class or I didn't really have a mentor to really go to so it's just a lot of kind of winging it honestly and I can't say my cold emails are very successful but I spent a lot of time doing them and I feel like it also helped give me an understanding of you know how to like market myself and how important branding is I feel like I've seen it like firsthand me starting off to like growing my brand and how you know you can like now send a cold email and actually get a response so what did your deck say and then what like how was the cold email response right did you get people who responded back yeah my decks were so funny I had they used to be like very like long-winded and now I think like the shorter the better like you want to feed people like quick information um but I had like my life story on there my achievements so I feel like probably not the best approach because like people who like you're cold emailing probably don't want to read like the whole entire thing but yeah like I had just like my achievements on there my whole life story, you know, what my goals were, why you should partner with me.

8:01What am I trying to achieve? And I would just find random emails to different companies, companies I liked, companies that were local to me, just like everyone I reached out to. Yeah. This is so interesting because I want to walk back to when me and Sophia were first fundraising for the company, we had no clue what we were doing. We literally went into our first pitch call with no deck, nothing. And we'd heard this whole trope on YouTube of, oh, pretend you're not raising and they'll come to you. Well, that works if you have an amazing product. We at the time are in college with no amazing product, actually no product at the time.

8:32And so it was just like a long winded pitch. And this is something we actually had to learn how to do. We were lucky enough to have an incredible mentor, Joanne Bradford, who was like head of partnerships at Pinterest. She had sold this company, Honey, and she guided us through like how to make the deck. But I'm curious for you, who was your first sponsor? So my first like big, like actual campaign was actually with Skims. And it was, I want to say like right before COVID or like either right after. So that was maybe in like 2019. And to me, that was massive. I was like, oh my God, it's like Kim Kardashian.

9:02Like I love her. So it was like very cool opportunity for me. So that was my first like kind of like breakthrough like brand moment. When you decided that you wanted to move and pursue full time, did you have to first get sponsors or what did that look like? Yeah. So basically I got an opportunity with Toyota before I moved to test one of their race cars. And they're like, you did great 10 out of 10 and I thought like this was like my big shot I was like yeah like I'm gonna get like a full ride and they're like you did great this is like how many dollars you need to bring to be able to race one of our race how much was it millions yes and bring it to them through sponsors or through prize money sponsors or family money either or and then to me like I didn't know much about the sport so I thought like oh I'm gonna go like do we're talking like 5 million six like how much like not to like make it sound like a small amount but like one or two million And like, okay.

9:53So Toyota is like, you need to, okay, we'll give you one of our cars, but you need to bring us one or 2 million in either family money or sponsorship money. That's how much it costs for that team to operate that Toyota. And is that just operational cost for a year? Yes. Wow. Yeah. So what's your reaction in this moment? Are you freaking out? Are you pumped? Like, where are you in this? It's funny. Cause I think I went in so naive. I thought I was going to go in and like really impress and they're going to be like, okay, yeah. Like you get this ride. And it was kind of a reality check. I was like, you can be an amazing driver, but like without partners, you're not going to go anywhere.

10:25So once I did that test, I was like, you know what, I'm still going to go ahead with the move. I didn't have any plans to race because I didn't have the funding behind me, but I was like, I'm just going to move out there, try to make connections. I knew how important that would be, especially just, you know, not being really in the sport prior. So I was like, I'm going to move to North Carolina. It's the hub for everything NASCAR, try to make connections with whoever and I would just do like Instacart during the days and send out my cold emails and yeah that was kind of like how like my like early years in North Carolina went was just me kind of just every day like waking up cold emails and I'd Instacart in the afternoon.

10:59I'm so proud of you that's incredible and when did it start to click together where you were able to raise that amount of funding? Honestly it was during COVID and it's when I kind of started getting on TikTok and making videos and I remember initially I was like I don't really see many like it was like a lot of people like dancing on TikTok and I was like there's not really anything motorsports related on there so initially I was like well it must be because people aren't interested and then I was like well maybe people are interested in it but they just don't know about it which was the case so I started creating videos around motorsports and just my experience in the space and they started blowing up and I started getting followers and then started getting brand deals from that so that was kind of like my pivotal moment was social media.

11:37Did you have a breakout video that reached a certain amount of views or something where you were like oh my god this is oh I remember my first viral video so vividly I remember just like refreshing my TikTok and just seeing like the numbers like go up by like the thousands it was like this little edit that my roommate at the time made like we just I did like a test at like a racetrack we threw like this little edit together with like like a trendy song and it blew up and I remember I was like it got like millions of views and I remember thinking like oh my god like this is my big break it's not like anything life-changing happened after that but it did definitely help me get followers and with followers like you have more value for brands and partners so yeah so I was like okay this works I just started creating more of those videos and building my brand from that but I'm surprised that Toyota isn't bringing any of their money into the game either when they're like oh you can use our car but yeah so it's the manufacturers in the sport like they'll help the teams and like they'll give us resources so for me like Toyota has a training facility that I use and everyone's deals are kind of different just like depending on the manufacturer and everything but it is just expensive and people expect you to bring the dollars to the table walk me through what's like the after race like culture in North Carolina that's the hub for everything that is NASCAR yeah are people hitting the bar afterwards are people friends with each other is there a little bit of rivalry with the other drivers what does that look like because I know it's very male-dominated as well it is very male dominated and yeah like where I live everybody's in racing like you walk outside you go to the grocery store and there's somebody in motorsports like my neighbors in motorsports so it's it's cool that like we're all kind of like it's like a little community I don't really have many friends out there just because it is male dominated I feel like I don't really have like a core group that I really gravitate to but I have like a couple of friends and I have like my teammates and you know drivers into the Toyota system that like I'll talk to in passing but yeah I kind of like honestly keep to myself I feel like when I first moved out there I really wanted to make friends but then I realized I was just like trying to like force relationships with people and I was like never mind yeah so you start blowing up on TikTok you start realizing oh if I have a social media presence it's easier for me to get brand deals and stuff so what did that look like where did you negotiate deals for them to say okay you need to sponsor my car and then I'll do a brand deal for you or what does that look like yeah so that's kind of the structure that we have now it's like you know if you want to work with me you need to be part of my story you need to support a female athlete because we noticed that you know over the past couple of years of doing this now like in a professional way that there's like brands that want to say that they're supporting a female athlete just to be like with the times but they're not actually giving the same amount of dollar support that they would give to a male counterpart so yeah it's been interesting working with certain brands that reach out to us and I know how much they're giving you know my male teammate and to me it's like not even like a quarter of them out for the same work how do you make the decision between okay this is how much they're gonna pay for sponsoring my car and then this is how much I myself make as income I technically get a salary through my team so like your purse money is your salary so drivers will get like a core salary from the team and then if you win typically what does that look like purse money honestly it varies so much the more you go up through the ranks I would say like most people competing in the top level which is the cup series like I think most people probably have like a million dollar salary again like to actually compete in the space is like so much more expensive than that.

14:57So I feel like that's just why like brand deals are so important. How much would you say if your income is brand deals versus the salary you're getting from the team? I mean, my brand deals are everything. Like I would not be surviving without my brand deals, for sure. That's why I put like so much emphasis on also like I do like a little bit of modeling and people are like, oh, why are you doing like so many extra stuff? I'm like, no, like I quite literally need to do this to live and like continue to raise.

15:29so you get a base income from your team and what's the purse money so the purse money varies like for a larger race like let's say daytona like if you win daytona you're gonna get more money i think if somebody wins they're bringing in like probably six figures something like that it's funny i don't really look at the purses because i just know they're so insignificant to the amount that actually costs to race like i actually like generally i don't think i've looked at like a single purse this year like the breakdown of it and I want to touch on of course the incredible campaigns that you've done for like Sports Illustrated and everything walk me through how did you obviously you're stunning how did you end up getting into modeling I'm very big into manifesting so I always kind of accredited to that but when I was younger I really wanted to be a model and I also really wanted to be a race car driver which is two very different two very different roles but for some reason I just had this like core belief that I was gonna be able to do both and I remember I told my friend at one point that I wanted to be a Victoria Secret model and also race and she was like yo you're you're crazy like that's not gonna happen you have to choose one and I was like but why like but like now looking back I'm like yeah that's like just very naive for me to say when I was younger to like be able to pursue like two things I mean the odds of like modeling for Victoria Secret and being a race car driver are like zero but somehow I did it so I purely think that was just from you know hard work and just like manifesting and having that belief that I could go out there and just do whatever just because like somebody hasn't done it before doesn't mean that I couldn't do it and I feel like I always had that belief like okay nobody's done it before so what and how did you get in touch with them was it they reached out to you you did your classic pitch email what happened so along the way I've had I've built like a very great team that works with me I have agents that I work with I'm signed with IMG so they get me a lot of my amazing fashion deals and everything but it's been just like a lot of like building and growing and really just being in the right rooms with people what was that call where they said oh my gosh here like Victoria's yeah I know I was I remember I was actually at a racetrack and it was so loud so I can like barely hear my phone I was like I was like freaking out and I remember I was racing at Talladega and right after I flew I flew to LA to shoot for Victoria's Secret like as soon as the race was done and I couldn't tell anybody I was like this is so crazy I feel like Hannah Montana just living these two lives of like just polar opposite and then what about Sports Illustrated how did that happen so So Sports Illustrated, they actually, I got reached out by them a few years ago, but I didn't feel like I was in like a place in my career to really do that.

17:47Like, I feel like it's, it's hard because I just being in a male dominated space, you want to like be respected. So I feel like I've always been like very careful about just like how I present myself. And I was kind of nervous, even with Victoria's Secret at times, because some people think that, you know, if you're more feminine, it makes you like lesser of a driver, like they won't respect you as much. So I feel like I've been trying to be a little bit strategic of like, you know, how much skin to show just being in a male-dominated space. I feel like I overhear like certain conversations and stuff like that.

18:16So I feel like when they reached out to me last year, I feel like the time was right. And I'm so glad I did it. I mean, working with them was amazing and such like an empowering experience. So basically like male cop drivers are earning$5 to$17 million. and some statistics say that female race car drivers are only earning three to 6 % of what male race car drivers are earning. And then on top of that, you have less media exposure for female drivers. How do you deal with being in such a male dominated industry? Honestly, it's been tricky to navigate. I feel like that's why I've been such like a big advocate and like wanting to mentor younger girls coming up through the space.

18:51Cause I'm like, it's hard. Like I didn't have a mentor to show me the ropes and I honestly didn't know it was gonna be this difficult just getting into it. But yeah, it's a lot to navigate. And I think the biggest thing for me is, you know, I've been with a lot of different teams. I've worked with a lot of different people in the sport and not everybody believes in you. Some people don't give you the same opportunity because they're like, oh, she's just a girl, whatever. Just give her whatever equipment or she's not going to win. So they don't give you that fair shot. So for me now being with the team that I'm with and Toyota, like I'm around people that treat me like a driver, just like everyone else.

19:20And that's the most important thing is just like having that equal treatment. And I think just for our audience, understanding the gender discrepancy within racing actually is insane. I mean, even in the Cup Series, like early on, it's one out of 40 drivers are actually female. Yeah, I'm the only female racing in NASCAR full-time this year, which is crazy because NASCAR has been around for ages. And there's been other females that have came up through the sport, but they haven't been able to sustain a career in it. Since 1949, when NASCAR was founded, only 120 women have competed, and it's under 5 % of participation.

19:51And how many people are participating this year? I mean, there's every race, like at least 35 drivers. Yeah, and I'm the only female. And how does that make you feel? Honestly, I don't think twice about it just because I think I'm so used to it. But looking at it, like I don't I don't want that for young girls coming up. I want there to be like it just there's such like a spotlight. It's like, oh, there's like the like I've had people tell me this year. Oh, you're like the one female this year. Like there's always just like one female and then she kind of fades out. But like I'm like, I want there to be like so many female drivers that it's not like, oh, my gosh, there's a female racing.

20:21Like it's honestly crazy. There's times I'm in my race suit next to my race car and people like, oh, are you racing? wait what the heck like are you actually driving I'm like no I'm just like standing no I just stay here for fun yeah for fun I'm just sweating in this thing but it just like people are so caught off guard by and I want to get to a point where it's just normal and do the male drivers also have social media platforms or do you so it's crazy because some of them actually don't have social media like some of the male drivers don't do their social media which I'm like that's honestly wild because like how do you build your brand how to get partners and they still and they still have partners I have no idea I think people just because it seems like kind of what from what you're saying if you didn't have a social media platform it would have been almost impossible for you to get sponsors oh 100 without my social media purely I would not be here which is why like I mean I love doing it but I'm definitely not going to like bash social media because it gives you so many opportunities like I just wouldn't be where I am without it but yeah some drivers don't you know do anything on social media which I'm like how do you how do you bringing them bugs that's crazy no but they just get that it's an expectation that for a female driver you need to have a social media presence so that they pay you and then you promote them to your followers I mean how how big has your social presence grown now I mean for Instagram I think I have like over two million followers same with TikTok so that's all just like you know brings up my value brings up my brand awareness and also grows my fan base but yeah it's definitely it's interesting because there's also I get like a lot of comments like oh like you're focusing so much on social media blah blah blah blah like your teammates aren't doing that the guys aren't doing that it's like well the guys don't have to that's why damn wow we actually see for women who blow up once you get past 100 ,000 followers the amount of on late hate bot detection etc is way bigger for women because it's targeted towards particularly female politicians face it way more than male politicians.

22:14How do you deal with like managing your time between racing, brand partnerships and content? What does your content team look like? Do you have someone who supports you on that end? So it's definitely a lot to balance. And I feel like my balance is always different, which I try to like give myself grace. Like this week I'm doing like a lot of like media and appearances and not so much on the racing side. And then next week's full blown training and focusing on racing. So, you know, I try to tell myself that balance is going to be different every day, every week, but I do have a really great social media team around me at the racetrack.

22:42It's me and my one videographer that we come up with the content. So yeah, it's a small team, but really effective. And I'm very lucky to have somebody like traveling with me, getting that content and being able to, you know, give brands like that exposure. And that's what I'm really interested about is walk me through what your different teams look like. Because you said, I think it's interesting. We were talking to Eileen Gu and she was like, I have a sports management team and then I have my modeling team and it was all these different kind of levers. What does that look like for you? Yeah, I would say I have like a it's definitely grown, but still kind of like a smaller team.

23:12So I have my modeling agency that I'm with that handles a lot of the fashion deals. Like, for instance, I had Coach working with me and I'm in their latest campaign. So that's kind of through my fashion agency. And then that's IMG. Yes, IMG. Yeah. And then, you know, I have my manager that's kind of manages just everything manageable that she can. And then I have my team that has like their own PR and handles solely just things on the racing side. So they're almost like very separate, but blend together really nicely. And I think everyone works together really well. And how did that pick up within your career?

23:45When did you decide, okay, now I need a PR team. Now I need this team. Like at what different stages did that come on? Yeah, it's kind of happened naturally, honestly. I feel like I've just had people like just wanting to be in my corner. And I feel like just the different people I've met, if they've shown like interest in wanting to work with me and like grow with me and help me build, then I'm like, okay, like, let me like have you join in on this little team that we have. So I think it just like happened like a really natural process, honestly. Was it like they reached out to you or how did that initially happen?

24:11Yeah, it's honestly through connections, like just building different connections. My current manager that I'm with right now, I was in a magazine that she was just flipping through and her client at the time sent me a DM just wanting to like reach out. And we ended up grabbing lunch and then I met my manager through that. So yeah, just like little like random moments like that, just like meeting different people. That's why I always like try to put myself in every room. I think it's so important. that's really good advice because I'm curious when you first started blowing up on social media was it like all these brands started reaching out to you emailing you wanting you to do deals how did you respond to that I don't feel like I had like one big like viral blow up where I was getting like all these brands all of a sudden I feel like it's been a building process like I always say it's kind of a snowball effect and I feel like I'm still experiencing it now like everything's just kind of like building and leading up and growing yeah I've been able to work with like so many of my dream brands like Celsius, Raising Cane's like they're brands that I generally love so much and like you know use every day which I think is awesome I can work with brands that are so authentic to me so I think for me just like making authentic content is so important because then you kind of like attract like the brands that you really feel like align with yourself.

25:17And what advice would you give to other women who want to do the same thing that you've been able to do? My biggest piece of advice would be don't be afraid to be the first you. I think it's so easy to just say like, oh, like there's no one that's done it before. So I can't do it. But it's like, just do your thing, like be that trailblazer. And what about your parents when you decided you didn't want to go to college? Did they push back on that? Are they surprised by the amount of success you have now? What does that look like? Yeah, my mom's always been very supportive. And I'm sure I think my dad was like a little more skeptical, but they never really vocalized that to me.

25:49And I remember hearing after like some of like, you know, my classmates in like high school thought that was like wild but everyone's like whoa like she actually actually did something but yeah it's definitely not traditional but I've also never been traditional and it's funny because I've never never thought twice about it like there's things that I've done and people like oh wow you've made so many sacrifices and to me I'm like they didn't feel like sacrifices because I was just following my dreams. Did you have any role models in the industry any people that you looked up to? Yeah I would say honestly there hasn't been that many female drivers you know Annika Patrick was a big one when I was younger growing up.

26:23And I do feel like when I saw her race, like seeing is believing that's so important. So I saw a female out there doing it. But honestly, I haven't really had anybody that I've truly looked up to. I haven't had a mentor. But I feel like that's why I also think it's so important for me to hopefully be able to be that for younger girls. And I love when younger girls reach out. I hosted an event for young racers a couple years ago now. And that was really special to me. And just like a very full circle moment to kind of be able to like just give them advice and help them through everything. and another thing I'm kind of curious about is do you have any advice for other people who want to build up their social media presence if they're interested in getting into racing I would say my biggest advice would be really just to be authentic and to share your story I feel like everyone has their own unique story so just like share then I think people will gravitate towards that I think when people try to like copy or do things that aren't quite as authentic people can like easily catch that so I think just like embrace your story and share your story and your journey because it's going to be different to someone else's which is great and how did it feel like for you because you were the first Arab American woman driver right what did you think when people said that to you actually funny story so I was racing Daytona for my first time ever I forget what year it was but maybe like 2021 something like that a few years ago and I was so excited because I was racing Daytona which was a bucket list race for me what is Daytona for anyone who doesn't know yeah so Daytona is a track in Daytona Florida and that's where like the Daytona 500 is hosted I wasn't racing the Daytona 500 but I was racing the day before in the smaller race so just even to be in that atmosphere at that track is really special it's also the first race of the year so there's like kind of like those butterflies and anxiousness and it's our biggest race so it's just like a lot of like intensity at that race and that was my first that was my first like big national race that I was doing so to me I was just like fully focused on the race nothing else and I guess during the race it blew up that I was racing because I became the first Arab American female to race in NASCAR which I had no idea about like I was just to me I'm like following my dreams racing at Daytona but after the race I was traveling back with my manager and her like phone starts blowing up with all these emails and it's like Ellen like hitting her up like saying like we need like Tony in LA so we did like an impromptu trip to LA after Daytona because like we're just getting like blown up by stuff but so you went on Ellen I did oh my god what was that like yeah so it was during like COVID time so it was virtual but so fun and like such great experience but it was crazy because I was just doing my thing racing I didn't think my story was interesting at all like I just was just kind of like you know just following my dreams and people just ended up gravitating towards it and I just thought it was the craziest thing.

28:59I'm like, Whoa, people like, I didn't realize I was doing something groundbreaking or different, I guess. So it was just a weird, it was a weird, like kind of like thing to go through. I want to switch gears a little bit. I want to dive into the workout stuff. Yes. What is your workout routine weekly? Can you talk about heat training and what that is? Yes. I'll give you the breakdown. So next week is my race week. So I'm going to kind of like step up my training a little bit and I'll kind of go with like strength on Monday. So we'll do like, like your typical like weight lifting squats all that kind of stuff like lower body I'll rotate between like strength and like cardio so we'll do like circuits like all your typical type of training but then we have heat training so like Wednesday next week I'll do my heat training and basically in a race car they get up to 130 degrees which is so toasty yeah very toasty and really hard to like think clearly and like perform at like your maximum level when you're like melting like that so we train to prepare for that just physically and mentally so Toyota has us in this little heat room and yeah we just have to do cardio in there and be at like our max heart rate in there just to kind of like replicate the conditions that we are feeling in the race car wow so you're in a hot room exercising oh my gosh that's crazy yeah and were you doing that in high school also what did your kind of workout routine look like when you were first starting out so honestly I did not know much about like how much I would need to prepare physically for racing because as you move up through the ladder system the races get longer and the cars get like harder to drive so now like thankfully I have like Toyota who gives us a place to train and trainers and nutritionist so they really like have like this whole system dialed in for us which is amazing because I really wouldn't know like anything about my nutrition or training or anything like that so that's been really really beneficial for me.

30:44What do you think are the most important things for people to prioritize when they're first starting out in this space do you think it's like health and fitness do you think it's strategy what would you say i would say number one thing is always seat time just like get as much seat time as you can i started go-karting when i was nine and i still go kart every week i think it's like great just for like you know just for fun but also just like the fundamentals of racing are the same no matter what you get in so i would just say seat time but yeah i mean health nutrition is important fitness the more research that's been done into like race car drivers, the more that everyone else has kind of been, you know, into like their fitness and everything.

31:17So back in the day, it wasn't like that. Like people were just like hopping in race cars. But I feel like more now, like the modern times, people really put an emphasis on it.

31:35And racing is a unique sport because we've seen the oldest racer in history is was 90 years old. how long do you think that I know how long do you think that you're going to be doing this for and what do you feel like is on the horizon for you in the next five to ten years you've already done so much I mean I want to do it for as long as I can as long as my body lets me I feel like people retire for different reasons some of it's for concussions depending like what kind of wrecks you get into and some people retire just because they feel like they've given the sport everything and they want family time and sometimes it's for financial reasons so I'm gonna do it for as long as I can honestly I don't have like a like end date for it but I would say my five-year plan would be to get to the cup series which is the top level in NASCAR right now I'm racing in the truck series so basically the ladder system is trucks Xfinity and cup so I have a couple more steps to get to like the top level so yeah I'm in my rookie season this year so yeah and on a race morning what does that routine look like you wake up it's a race day it's a Saturday what are we doing to get yourself in the mental space to be ready to go?

32:34So a lot of our race days, we actually fly in and out same day. So it goes by so fast. So a lot of times I'm waking up at like 4am, hopping on an airplane, going to the racetrack immediately from there. And I feel like I don't have like a specific routine. So I feel like my race days are always so different depending if I have like an interview or like what kind of appearances I have. But biggest thing is always like rest. I always make sure I have at least eight hours of sleep for me to like function. And then hydration is super important because even like on days where it doesn't feel hot out, the cars still get very toasty.

33:03So those are kind of like my two priorities. How does beauty and self-care routine fit into all of this? Oh, my gosh. My skin's always freaking out because I'm constantly in a sweaty, crusty helmet for hours on end. You look so mean. Thank you. So I take my skincare routine very seriously. No matter how tired I am after a race, I always make sure to do my whole like 10-step routine. But also I feel like it's... Wait, what is the 10-step routine? It's a process. It's a process. I would say my faves are The Ordinary. I don't know if you've tried their serums before, but I use. Yeah, it's really good.