Toni Breidinger knows exactly what assumptions people make about her: that her brand deals and modelling work distract from her talents on-track, and she can’t possibly have time to balance it all. Thankfully, it’s a narrative that she’s more than happy to dismantle.
“When people say that doing brand deals affects my performance, I’m like, ‘No, you know what affects my performance? Not being able to race because I can’t afford it’,” she tells Motorsport.com.
At 26, Breidinger is not only competing full-time in the NASCAR Truck Series, she’s also a dream brand ambassador: game-faced, stylish and uniquely positioned at the swelling intersection of motorsport and American pop culture.
It’s a good thing she is also a self-confessed workaholic, because Coach, Victoria’s Secret, 818 Tequila, Dave & Buster’s and Raising Cane’s are just a few of the big businesses that have come knocking. Motorsport is pay to play, and this is the name of the game.
“You need seat time to get better, and you have to pay for it… it sounds toxic, but I’m okay with working 99% of the time right now,” she explains, seated in the eye of the swirling chaos that is her dual racing and modelling careers.
“It’s a cycle, and I’m still figuring out how to balance it, but I’m at a critical point in my career so I want to give it 1000% and look back knowing it was worth it.”
Toni Breidinger, TRICON Garage Toyota
Photo by: David Jensen / Getty Images
The economics of racing are punishing, especially for young women who make up a fraction of the talent pool and often have to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously. But what’s long been considered a hurdle for female athletes, Breidinger has spun into opportunity – not just for herself, but for the brands smart enough to align with her.
In refusing to choose between grit and glamour, she’s carved out a space that’s entirely her own and has become a lightning rod for companies eager to tap into the rapidly expanding female sports market.
“I like leaning into the female-focused brands and products that I use myself, because they’re often things that my male team-mates don’t use,” she says. “I might as well leverage that and build partnerships with brands that are authentic to me and tap into [the female] demographic.”
It’s a subtle, but savvy, reimagining of what power looks like in motorsport. While the rest of the grid chases the same pool of sponsors, Breidinger – the first Arab-American woman to compete in a NASCAR-sanctioned event – gets to play in a much larger sandbox. And judging by her roster of sponsors, no sector is off-limits.
The most recent addition to Breidinger’s lineup, Dave & Buster’s, proves that her appeal extends well beyond the likes of makeup and haircare brands.
“It’s important that all of my deals feel authentic and are really aligned with me,” she says. “Dave & Buster’s is a place I grew up going to in the Bay Area with my sister. Whenever we had an off weekend from karting, we’d go play games, so this is a really nostalgic, full-circle moment.”
Toni Breidinger
Photo by: Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for Dave and Buster’s
Her partnership with Raising Cane’s also became a hit with a wide-ranging demographic. “When I did my national campaign with Raising Cane’s last year it drew a lot of attention from their fans and kind of blended our fan bases together,” Breidinger adds.
She has even noticed an uptick in the number of people who started following her NASCAR journey – particularly young women – after discovering her through her sponsorships.
“It’s always really exciting to meet young girls who say they want to race because of me,” she says. “I want to be able to inspire them to pursue their passions… especially in NASCAR, which is still very male-dominated.”
In addition to delivering strong performances on-track, Breidinger’s key focus is “showing girls that femininity shouldn’t hold you back from being a race car driver”.
She adds: “When I was younger, I was insecure about pursuing a career path that was out of the norm, so it’s important to be inclusive and build community to show young girls that you can have other passions and it won’t take away from your sport.”
Breidinger says her passion for style and fashion actually helps her perform at her peak.
Toni Breidinger, TRICON Garage Toyota
Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images
“It’s a creative outlet and a way for me to express myself. The better I feel, the better I’m going to race,” she says. “It’s all about confidence – you want to show up feeling good about yourself.”
Not only has she tapped into the female-focused, Gen Z market by partnering with brands like Coach (the American luxury fashion house has put its money where its mouth is by supporting female athletes across multiple sports), but her team also pitched Kendall Jenner’s buzzy Tequila brand, 818. The result was 818’s first national sports partnership.
“Kendall wished me luck before the race [in Nashville], which was amazing,” Breidinger says of the supermodel. “She’s a female in a very male-dominated world and has really been paving the way in the liquor space, so I feel like we align in some ways.”
Thanks to her relentless work ethic, Breidinger has played a quiet but critical role in the growth of motorsport across America, particularly within the demographics that NASCAR has long struggled to connect with. Still, when the helmet goes on, the brand deals go out the window and the racing is all that matters.
“When I’m at the track, I’m their race car driver,” she says of her team, Tricon Garage. “They’re so professional and don’t ask too many questions. But they respect that I have other jobs, and they see that I’m trying to balance everything.”
Despite the chaos of back-to-back flights from New York Fashion Week to the Daytona International Speedway, Breidinger is steady.
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“I take it one step at a time,” she says. “My perfect five-year plan would be to get to the Cup Series.”
She knows that “a lot of factors would need to align” to move up through NASCAR’s ranks, but it’s not an impossible goal. And if her track record is any indication of where she’s headed, then Breidinger is just getting started.
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