{"id":237018,"date":"2025-10-24T13:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237018\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T13:38:10","slug":"brad-daugherty-bridges-two-worlds-with-balancing-act-between-nascar-and-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237018\/","title":{"rendered":"Brad Daugherty Bridges Two Worlds with Balancing Act Between NASCAR and Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up in Black Mountain, N.C., Brad Daugherty was always devoted to the Tar Heel State\u2019s twin passions: college basketball and car racing. Growing up, he used to play basketball during the day, and then head over in the evening to his friend\u2019s race shop, where he often worked past midnight. And he kept his hands in racing\u2014enjoying it as an off-season pursuit\u2014even during his NBA career with the Cavaliers. Talking to the seven-footer today, it\u2019s hard to tell if he was more excited to be the No. 1 pick in the 1986 draft or to win the Daytona 500<\/a> as an owner in 2023. Not only is Daugherty a co-owner of Hyak Motorsports, but he is also an analyst for both NBA and NASCAR broadcasts on NBC. Old habits die hard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hardly a surprise that when Michael Jordan\u2014his teammate at UNC\u2014was thinking about becoming an owner of a NASCAR team, one of the calls he made was to Daugherty, whose car is driven in the Cup series by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Jordan eventually teamed up with current Cup driver Denny Hamlin to form 23XI Racing, whose colors are carried in the Cup series by drivers Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick. More than 30 years after Daugherty and Jordan battled it out on NBA hardwood, they are racing wheel-to-wheel in NASCAR.<\/p>\n

Sports Illustrated recently caught up with Daugherty to not only talk about Jordan, but also about his life and career in racing.<\/p>\n

\"During<\/p>\n

During his time at UNC, Daugherty led the Tar Heels to two Elite Eight appearances. \/ Malcolm Emmons-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

SI: What was your Welcome to Racing moment?<\/p>\n

Brad Daugherty: My welcome to racing moment was in 1989. I had partnered with my best buddy, Robert Pressley. He was a rookie racing in what\u2019s now the Xfinity Series [but was then called the Busch Series]. We were racing late models; I worked on the cars and messed around and just had fun, and he drove, obviously. It was something I did in the off-season. I love cars. We had raced local-circuit stuff, and then we decided we were going to give the Busch Series a shot. We had built a race car, and had run a couple of races to try to qualify in. We did a pretty good job\u2014didn\u2019t run great, but ran okay.<\/p>\n

And we were at Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, North Carolina. I can\u2019t remember the exact date. [It was Aug. 12, 1989.] And we were there racing that weekend, and we were having a good thing, we were racing hard. I actually was the gas man on the race car. Thank goodness we didn\u2019t have to fuel the car much back in those days\u2014I think that\u2019s why they gave me the job. But we were having a good race that evening. We were running quick, and I looked up with about 15 laps to go\u2014and we were racing against Chuck Bown, who\u2019s a champion, Tommy Ellis, who\u2019s a champion, just all of these legendary guys\u2014and we\u2019re running fifth. And we get down to the white flag and Robert gets to third, and there\u2019s a big scramble, they\u2019re racing hard. And, lo and behold, we win the race. So that was kind of my Welcome to Racing moment because before that we were just messing around, having fun, going to local short tracks. Just guys having fun. I was like, Wow, this is a big deal. I think I want to do more of this.<\/p>\n

SI: Growing up in Western North Carolina, in Black Mountain, was your family more about racing or were they more about basketball?<\/p>\n

BD: You know, growing up in North Carolina, it\u2019s kind of like college basketball and racing were almost our state bird. It was just everywhere. Our local newspaper was filled with the legendary stories weekly about Jack Ingram and Bob Pressley and Harry Gant going nose-to-nose over at Asheville Speedway. And then you turn around and read about Norm Sloan\u2019s Wolfpack basketball team, and Dean Smith at Carolina. Both of those sports were such a huge piece of the cultural fabric of the state of North Carolina, and still are today. It’s still woven deeply into it. My dad loved racing. My uncles were drag racers. We lived on a little family farm there in Black Mountain. And there was an apple tree that always had a chain and a winch hung over it with a motor hanging off of it, that type of thing. It was just normal. I know when people started seeing me at their racetrack\u2014you know, a big basketball player, an African-American guy\u2014it was like, \u201cYou like to race?\u201d But I grew up going to Bristol and Shadyside and watching races, going to watch stock car races at Ashville Speedway, going to Darlington, going to Daytona. I just was always around it.<\/p>\n

But I played basketball. I played baseball, too, and I played a little bit of football. We just were really a sports-heavy family, and racing was part of that appetite. So, Friday nights the big race for us would be over at Asheville Speedway. And then Saturday night they raced at Hickory or Greenville. And when we weren\u2019t doing that we were playing basketball or playing pickup football or baseball or, you know, we were just hunting or fishing.<\/p>\n

SI: When did basketball become your focus more than racing?<\/p>\n

BD: It started in high school. You know, the racing thing was not going to happen. There were a bunch of things. First of all, if you look at me, I have no business trying to\u2014racing for a living was probably not going to work out at 6’10”, 6’11”. It just wasn’t going to happen. And just financially, there was no way. My family comes from humble means and trying to be in the racing business in any capacity other than working on race cars…. I wasn\u2019t going to work on race cars for a living. I just did it to have fun because I love cars.<\/p>\n

The basketball thing, it got me thinking, I\u2019m pretty good at this. I enjoy it. I\u2019m kind of a lone-wolf-type personality. I enjoy being by myself. I could go shoot basketball for hours. And there were a couple of basketball courts within a quarter mile of my house, so I went to one of them about every day, and I could shoot all day long and pretend I was David Thompson. And then when I got to high school I realized that this would be a great way to go to college for free. So, that was my first thought. And then I got better and, lo and behold, by the time I was a senior in high school I had 5-to-600 college scholarship opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

In addition to his team co-ownership, Daugherty has also served as an analyst for NASCAR coverage. \/ Dave Kallmann \/ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via Imagn Content Services, LLC<\/p>\n

SI: You got to North Carolina when you were 16 because you skipped eighth grade?<\/p>\n

BD: I\u2019d actually just started school early. My birthday is in October. So, looking back on it, I think my parents were sick and tired of me being around the house. I went to kindergarten early, about a year and a half early. I ended up at Chapel Hill at 16, and then turned 17 that October.<\/p>\n

SI: Did you used to talk about racing with Michael Jordan?<\/p>\n

BD: No. You know, Michael, his affinity for racing kind of grew. I think it became much deeper after he was in college. Every once in a while we talked a little bit about racing, but not a whole lot. There was so much going on. I mean, we were in Chapel Hill. We were chasing basketball and girls, you know? It kind of wasn\u2019t one of those things you just talked about. We were college kids. We were talking about our geology classes\u2014what a pain in the butt they were, how hard they were, and that type of thing. We didn\u2019t talk about racing. We talked about, obviously, trying to win basketball games, and also just the normal things that guys talked about back in the \u201980s in college.<\/p>\n

SI: I assume it\u2019s hard to focus on anything but basketball when you\u2019re at Carolina and then you\u2019re the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft?<\/p>\n

BD: Yeah, but racing was always in the summertime. So, you know, we messed around with race cars usually in June and July. That’s when the little, local short-track stuff would kick up. They\u2019d start racing a little bit before that, but when it got hot and heavy I\u2019d usually hook up and go race with Robert Pressley. By June we\u2019d have finished up our exams. I was usually done with school in the middle of May, and then I\u2019d go work out every day, work on my basketball, and then go play with race cars. And that\u2019s what Robert worked on all day. And I would meet him at night at the race shop, and we would work on a race car from basically six o’clock until midnight. And then on the weekend we\u2019d go race.<\/p>\n

SI: When did you meet Robert Pressley?<\/p>\n

BD: I didn\u2019t meet Robert until right after my senior year of college. His dad was a legendary short-track racer\u2014won over 500 short-track races. My rookie year in the NBA, I befriended Robert at a race at Asheville. I was there with my buddies. We had a couple of guys who raced that were in our hometown, just local guys, and me and my high school buddies, we kind of helped those guys a little bit. We were always working on race cars and messing around. But we were at a race at Asheville, and after the race\u2014[Robert had] won the race\u2014I was walking down pit road, and there was Robert all by himself. So I walked over there and started talking to him. I was like, \u201cYou look like you need some help.\u201d He started laughing. He said, \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll take all the help I can get.\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know much, but I love racing. I\u2019ll work on your race car.\u201d He told me to come on out to his shop. The next day, I loaded up and went out. And from then on, that\u2019s where I was every day until I went to play basketball.<\/p>\n

SI: Him driving and you working on the late models, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n

BD: Yeah, we were running late models for a couple of years, and we won track championships at Ashville, Greenville, Hickory. We drug that late model all over the country during the summer. We raced everywhere from Pulaski, Virginia, to Daytona\u2014just all over. Robert was a talented driver. He was pretty rough, but he was definitely talented. We won a Mid-Atlantic regional championship one year\u2014my math might be wrong, but we won like 18 out of 25 races or something crazy. Maybe 18 out of 30 races, something like that. That was probably around \u201986 or \u201987. So, I may have been a rookie in the NBA.<\/p>\n

SI: When did you make the jump to Cup racing?<\/p>\n

BD: Myself, Tad Geschickter and [his wife] Jodi Geschickter, that was JTG Racing. We raced together [beginning in 2008] for well over a decade. We ran bunch of races together. We won the Daytona 500 in 2023 with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Now my partner\u2019s Gordon Smith. Our company is called Hyak, which is Chinook for go fast. \u2029And, you know, we\u2019re just beating right along, trying to build our program and continue to race as a single-car team. Small guys\u2014got a small operation\u2014but man, we race hard and we love racing.<\/p>\n

\"Daugherty<\/p>\n

Daugherty calls his win at the Daytona 500 with Stenhouse Jr. in 2023 a career achievement. \/ NADIA ZOMORODIAN\/NEWS-JOURNAL \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/p>\n

SI: Did Jordan seek you out for advice before he became a NASCAR owner?<\/p>\n

BD: Yeah, I talked to Michael. He was just so passionate about getting involved. He\u2019s great friends with Denny [Hamlin], and Denny kind of coaxed him into it. I think Michael was really comfortable with just being a fan and enjoying it. I think Denny\u2014you know, they play a lot of golf together and they\u2019re good buddies, and I think Denny showed him what it could be, especially with Toyota.<\/p>\n

And Michael, he called me and said, \u201cI\u2019m at the end of my career with basketball and being an owner, and I want to get into the racing business in a big way. And so, we talked about the business and how it works. I told him, \u201cI\u2019m a little fish, and this is how I make it work. My aspirations are to be successful. I don\u2019t want to be big. But now, for you, you\u2019re going to have different opportunities, different resources, because you\u2019re a cultural icon. Everybody\u2019s going to want a piece of that. Every manufacturer\u2019s going to try to figure out a way to be getting into the Michael Jordan business.\u201d I just told him, \u201cIt\u2019s going to come at you like water out of a fire hose. So be prepared and, you know, have fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he loves it. He loves his racing, man. And he loves all forms of racing. He owned a Superbike team. People don\u2019t realize that. He was heavily into motorcycles and motorcycle macing. That was his passion. A lot of people don\u2019t know that. And he just loves racing, so it\u2019s fun, man. I\u2019m looking at Bubble Wallace over these last several weeks, and I think he\u2019s developed himself into a driver that on any given weekend is going to win a race\u2014for the rest of his career. And Michael\u2019s got to be exceedingly proud about that. I know he is. He gave Bubba a hell of an opportunity.<\/p>\n

I had a chance at Bubba: I talked to him when he was exiting Roush, and I talked to my partner, Tad [Geschickter], about trying to get Bubba in a race car for us. And I just hated it that we couldn\u2019t do it. I talked to Bubba about it. It would have been kind of a disservice to him, because my race team, we have to scrap\u2014kind of like the race teams he went and drove for before he got to Michael. And I wanted Bubba to have the same opportunities that his peers had. His peer group got into the premium rides. They went through Hendrick and Penske, and he hadn\u2019t had that opportunity. And so, when it didn\u2019t work out for him to get in our race car\u2014which would have been just a lateral move for him anyway\u2014I was so tickled. I told Michael, \u201cMan, thank you. I\u2019m so proud of you, and I\u2019m so happy. It makes my heart warm that [Bubba\u2019s] going to have a real opportunity to showcase his talent and his ability.\u201d And now he\u2019s showing it.<\/p>\n

SI: Was winning the Daytona 500 a career achievement for you?<\/p>\n

BD: Yeah, it\u2019s the pinnacle of the sport. As a little kid I was watching it on ABC, watching the Allisons trying to whoop Cale Yarborough\u2019s behind on national TV! And my uncle, Booker Mitchell, used to take me to Daytona as a kid. We\u2019d drive all the way to Florida and watch those races. You know? I\u2019m thinking back. My dad was\u2014oh, man\u2014we used to have this big car. It was so fun. My dad, we\u2019d get in the car and take off and, you know, that was back in the late \u201970s or whatever. And you think of today how much the world has evolved. We\u2019d get in the car, my dad\u2019s yelling at everybody, rolling the windows up. He\u2019s smoking. He\u2019s chain-smoking and we\u2019ve got the windows rolled up and we\u2019re driving down the interstate! He\u2019s like, \u201cPut those damn seatbelts down between the seats before they hit somebody and somebody gets hurt!\u201d You know? It was just so different than it is today.<\/p>\n

Being a small team, winning the Daytona 500, that\u2019s as good as it gets. We\u2019re never going to win a championship. We\u2019re not going to out-resource those big teams. They got all the resources of the manufacturers lined up behind them to win those championships. But if you can win races, you win at Talladega, you win at Daytona\u2014you know, we\u2019re really good at concrete places, our little race team. We could have a perfect day. We could win Dover, we could win Bristol, maybe somewhere like Nashville or Atlanta, where we think we\u2019ve got a chance. That\u2019s what it\u2019s about. The family atmosphere of our race team and just us against them.<\/p>\n

And yeah, we get our teeth kicked in a lot. But man, we go at it and we love it. And it\u2019s fun. The pursuit is fun. Then when you get to something like the Daytona 500, that Harley J. Earl Trophy, it\u2019s like looking at a diamond. You know? And we have one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up in Black Mountain, N.C., Brad Daugherty was always devoted to the Tar Heel State\u2019s twin passions:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-237018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}