07/12/2026
She was nine years old when her father saw a newspaper ad for a go-kart school. He took her and her twin sister along. Neither of them could have known it was the start of a career that would rewrite NASCAR history.
Toni Breidinger was born in San Francisco to a Lebanese mother and German father, raised in nearby Hillsborough, California. Go-karts came first. By 15 she had moved into the USAC Western US Asphalt Midget Series, and within two years she was a series champion. After graduating high school in 2017, she left open-wheel racing behind and headed to North Carolina to chase something bigger: stock cars.
Four years of late model racing followed before she stepped into the ARCA Menards Series in 2021. What she did there still stands as a record. Across four seasons and 65 starts, Breidinger collected 27 top-10 finishes, the most by any female driver in ARCA history. In 2022, her first full-time season, she opened with a top-10 at Daytona and closed sixth in points. By 2024, she had climbed to fourth in the standings.
Then came the achievement that put her name in the history books for good. In 2025, Breidinger moved up full-time to NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series, becoming the first Arab-American woman ever to compete in a NASCAR national touring series. A driver who started in a parking-lot go-kart school was now racing at Daytona, Talladega, and every major NASCAR Truck Series venue in the country.
For 2026, she switched manufacturers entirely, leaving Toyota for Chevrolet, and joined Rackley WAR to drive the No. 27 Silverado on a part-time schedule backed by Raising Cane's, Celsius, and Sunoco. She is also running select races for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing in the No. 20 truck, giving her seat time across two teams in the same season.
Racing has never been her only lane. Breidinger is signed with IMG Models and has appeared in Marie Claire Arabia, Glamour, Flaunt, Shape, and GQ. In 2025 she became the first NASCAR driver in history to appear in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, joining a rookie class that included WNBA star Cameron Brink and LPGA star Nelly Korda. But she has been clear about where her priorities sit, calling modeling a form of leverage that helps fund the career she loves most: racing.
From a go-kart school she found through a newspaper ad to becoming the first Arab-American woman in NASCAR's national series, Toni Breidinger's story is proof that history gets made one lap at a time.
