This Weekend Belongs to the Women of NASCAR

If you’ve got plans to sit in front of your TV all weekend but you’ve got nothing left on your watchlist, allow me to spare you from a very sad what-should-I-watch scroll of despair! Starting Friday night, a series of NASCAR racing events will kick off in Dover, Delaware—and three truck-driving women will be the ones to watch. 

Specifically, Dystany Spurlock, Natalie Decker, and Toni Breidinger are set to mark milestones in the ECOSAVE 200, a part of NASCAR’s Truck Series—which, per USA Today, is noteworthy for a variety of reasons. The outlet reports:

Spurlock and Breidinger are both guaranteed spots to start the race this weekend because there are only 36 trucks entering the race, which is the maximum grid size. While six women entered various races at Daytona earlier this year, the ECOSAVE 200 will mark the first time since 2020 that at least three women have competed in the same race in one of NASCAR’s top three touring series.

Spurlock is NASCAR’s first Black woman driver, and will also be marking the milestone of being the first Black woman to race in one of NASCAR’s top three touring series. (These include the Cup series, the Xfinity series, and Craftsman Truck series.) Speaking to Good Morning America about her experience earlier this week, she said, “Being able to be that example for other little girls and little boys that look like me is amazing. I didn’t have that representation growing up, and being in this role is not easy.” 

Alongside Spurlock will be Decker, who’s returning to the track more than a year after giving birth and who will be racing a truck for the first time since 2020; and Breidinger, a self-titled “real life Hannah Montana” who’s doubled as a racer and a model. (Someone do me a favor, and not tell Michael Bay about this.)

Last year, Breidinger was the only woman to race in one of NASCAR’s top three national series. Speaking to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, she said, “When I initially entered the space, I was just following my dreams and doing something that I’ve always dreamed of doing, and didn’t really realize that I was doing something different, or being a trailblazer, in a sense…Once I got that accomplishment, and kind of have now been through the sport a little bit more, I realized that I actually am making an impact.”

NASCAR is a competition of which almost half its fans are women, and since its inaugural season in 1949, female racers have been competing. One of the most significant drivers by far has been Danica Patrick, who’s been the only woman to win an Indycar Series race in 2008, and the first to win a NASCAR Cup Series pole position in 2013. She retired in 2018, and just one woman—Katherine Legge—has participated in the cup series since. But Legge will be attempting to hit goalposts of her own later this month—and will be the first woman to attempt a “Double,” or racing in both the Indy500 and Coca-Cola 600 in the same day.