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Toni Breidinger
American model and racing driver (born 1999) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Antoinette Marie Breidinger (born July 14, 1999) is an American professional stock car racing driver and model. She last competed full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 5 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for Tricon Garage. Breidinger is the first female Arab-American driver to compete in NASCAR, being of Lebanese and German descent.
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Raised in Hillsborough, California, Breidinger started competing in go-karts at the age of nine. After five years of go-kart racing, she moved to the USAC Western US Asphalt Midget Series at age 15 in 2014, winning the series championship two years later. Moving to North Carolina after graduating high school in 2017, she switched from open-wheel racing to stock car racing, racing primarily in late models for four years. Starting in 2021, she moved her focus towards the ARCA Racing Series, racing with Venturini Motorsports for most of her ARCA career. In her four seasons in ARCA, she amassed four top-fives and 27 top-tens. In 2025, she moved up full-time to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with Tricon Garage.
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Early life and family background
Breidinger was born in San Francisco, California on July 14, 1999, and raised in the nearby city of Hillsborough.[1][2] She is of German and Lebanese descent, with her father being German and her mother being Lebanese.[3] Breidinger was born alongside a twin sister, Annie.[4] She was educated at Mercy High School in Burlingame where she graduated in 2017.[‡ 1] In an interview with The Athletic's Jeff Gluck, she stated that she loved her high school years, stating, "There’s so much diversity there. I grew up around so many different cultures and I was almost spoiled in a sense... I took it for granted... Now that I’m not living there, I’m like, 'Dang, I took it for granted.'"[5]
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Early racing career
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When she was nine years old, Breidinger started racing go-karts when her father took her and her twin sister to a go-kart school after he saw a newspaper advertisement for the school.[6] After the duo attended several lessons, he bought the two go-karts for them to race.[4] In an interview with Autoweek, she stated that her introduction to racing brought her a "sense of independence" that she wanted as a child.[7][8] She continued racing go-karts until 2014. In 2011, she suffered the only major injury of her career when she and competitor Logan Sargeant crashed during a go-kart race at the CalSpeed Karting Center, with Breidinger being thrown out of the car and sustaining a broken arm.[9][10] In 2014, she moved up to the USAC Western US Asphalt Midget Series at age 15, finishing runner-up in the series standings in her first season.[11] After another runner-up standings finish the year after, she won the series championship in 2016,[12] in the process becoming the winningest female driver in any USAC asphalt division at the time.[13]
Initially wanting to pursue a career in open-wheel racing, she switched passions to stock car racing after watching late model races at Madera Speedway while she was racing midget cars.[8][14] Although her father initially refused to let her race late models, he relented after she won the Western Midget Series championship in 2016.[14] After graduating high school in 2017, she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, to further pursue her racing career.[15] In 2018, she made her debut in the ARCA Racing Series for Venturini Motorsports, finishing in tenth at Madison.[16][17] She later made two additional starts for the team in that year's season.[18] Early in 2019, she applied to join the W Series, an open-wheel and female-exclusive racing series, for their inaugural season. Although she was selected to make the initial top-60 round,[19] she was not selected to be one of the 18 drivers for the season.[20] Later that year, she joined GMS Racing's driver development program, racing late models for the team.[21] In 2020, she raced a full season in the Carolina Pro Late Model Series, finishing fourth in the series standings.[22]
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ARCA and NASCAR
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2021–2023
In 2021, Breidinger announced a part-time schedule in the ARCA Racing Series alongside the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Young's Motorsports.[23] In her debut with the team, she finished eighteenth, in the process becoming the first Arab-American woman to race in any national touring NASCAR series.[22] However, after five ARCA starts with the team and no Truck Series starts, she moved to Venturini Motorsports midway through the season to race four additional ARCA races for them, joining the Toyota Racing Development (TRD) team.[24][25]
The following year, Breidinger ran her first full-time season in ARCA for the series' 2022 season, staying with Venturini Motorsports.[26] In the season-opener, she finished in the top-ten at Daytona. The season's opening ten rounds saw Breidinger achieve four top-ten finishes,[27] only failing to finish once at Talladega.[28] At the conclusion of her first full-time season, she finished sixth in the series standings, obtaining six total top-ten finishes and failing to finish four races throughout the season.[29]
Breidinger remained at Venturini Motorsports for the 2023 season, scaling back to a part-time ARCA schedule and initially signing for 11 races.[30] In addition to her ARCA schedule, she raced full-time for Nitro Motorsports in the inaugural season of the Toyota North America GR Cup, a touring car racing series exclusively limited to Toyota GR86 cars.[31] According to Breidinger, she raced in the series to gain more road course experience.[32] In the 2023 ARCA season, Breidinger was able to secure her first top-five finish in the series,[33] earning four top-fives in the season and earning a best race finish of third at Kansas.[34] Also in 2023, Breidinger made her debut in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Tricon Garage, finishing in fifteenth at the Heart of America 200.[35][36] Afterwards, she raced two additional events for the team in the 2023 Truck season.[37]
2024–2025
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Breidinger returned to a full-time schedule for the 2024 season, remaining at Venturini Motorsports.[38] In the season-opener race at Daytona, she wrecked out early in the race in a multi-car crash.[39] She achieved eleven top-ten finishes throughout the 20-race season, with a best race finish of sixth.[40][41] In addition, she failed to finish three additional races due to crashes.[42][43][44] She finished the season with an average start of 12.0 and an average finish of 12.2, coming in fourth in the series standings.[40] Also in 2024, Breidinger made a one-off Truck Series start for Tricon Garage, finishing in 27th for the series' season-opener.[45][46]
Breidinger moved up full-time to the Truck Series for 2025, signing with Tricon Garage.[41] She faced numerous struggles throughout her rookie Truck season. Through the first 15 races of the season, she achieved two top-20 finishes, with a best result of 18th at Rockingham, which placed her 22nd in the full-time driver's standings; only ahead of Frankie Muniz.[47] However, she finished all but two of her first 15 races.[47][48][49] In an interview given in May 2025, Breidinger stated that she experienced a "steep" learning curve racing trucks compared to ARCA cars, noting that "I knew the learning curve was going to be steep... But I don’t think I realized how much I was going to learn."[50][51] In her final ten races, she failed to finish in four races, finishing no better than 24th in any of the ten races.[49] At the 17th round at Watkins Glen, she was involved in a fiery incident after an engine failure.[52] During the same weekend, she had several personal belongings stolen after someone broke into her car on August 8;[53] the items were found a month later.[54] She finished the year 23rd in the driver's standings, with an average start of 26.7 and an average finish of 25.4.[49]
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Non-racing ventures and personal life
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Outside of racing, Breidinger pursues a modeling career to help support her racing career, describing it as "leverage".[55] She is currently signed with modeling agency IMG Models.[56] She has done modeling appearances for various publications, including Marie Claire Arabia,[57] Glamour,[7] Flaunt,[58] Shape,[59] and GQ.[56] In 2025, she appeared on Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue, becoming the first NASCAR driver to model for the publication.[55] Speaking about her racing and modeling careers, she described herself as a Hannah Montana-like figure as "I have like these two different lives that I'm living and they're polar opposites".[60] In a Nylon interview, she stated that she was inspired to go into modeling after watching Victoria's Secret fashion shows as a child, with Adriana Lima cited as her childhood idol.[61]
Breidinger endorses the Women's Sports Foundation and has appeared in various galas and events for the foundation.[62][63] In addition, throughout various races in her career, she has put the foundation on her race vehicles as a gesture of goodwill.[64] Breidinger has also participated as a competitor with the American Cornhole League for their "Cornhole for a Cause" charity event.[65] She is partnered with various companies; Breidinger has appeared on advertising billboards and cardboard cutouts for American chicken finger restaurant chain Raising Cane's as part of a national advertising campaign.[66][67] She is also partnered with energy drink company Celsius, fuel company Sunoco,[68] fashion house Coach,[69] restaurant and entertainment chain Dave & Buster's,[70] and Kendall Jenner-owned tequila brand 818 Tequila.[71] In 2021, she made an appearance on American talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show.[72]
Breidinger has been vocal about her past struggles with body confidence. In 2022, while announcing a partnership to become a Victoria's Secret model, she stated that "growing up I struggled a lot with body confidence", adding that she focused on self-improvement of her physical and mental health the year prior.[73]
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Motorsports career results
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NASCAR
(key) (Bold;– Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics;– Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. *;– Most laps led.)
Craftsman Truck Series
* Season still in progress
1 Ineligible for series points
ARCA Menards Series
(key) (Bold;– Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics;– Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. *;– Most laps led.)
ARCA Menards Series East
ARCA Menards Series West
CARS Super Late Model Tour
(key)
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References
External links
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