'I love doing things that are out of the norm and different.” 'You also get that adrenalin rush, but I'm not an adrenalin junkie, which is kind of funny – I'm scared of roller coasters and all that other adrenalin junkie stuff, but I just love how competitive racing is,' Breidinger explains. She loves the competitive element of the sport. When the time came to decide between college and cars, Annie chose the former, while Toni has stuck firmly with the latter. Courtesy Toni Breidingerīoth girls became increasingly competitive and started racing, driving go-karts for more than a decade before moving into race cars. He ended up buying them their own go-kart and then, when they started arguing about who would drive it first, their second.īreidinger, right, with her sister and mother, who is Lebanese. Her father took her and her twin sister, Annie, for a fun day out, little knowing that the activity would become something of an obsession for both his daughters. Her love of motor sports can be traced back to an impromptu visit to a go-kart track when she was only 9 years old.

I feel really connected to that side of me.” “My mum really taught us about the culture growing up.

Having moved away from the family home to settle in Charlotte, North Carolina, a Nascar hub, she says one of the things she misses most is her mum’s Lebanese cooking. There’s never a time when I do something just to do it.”īreidinger grew up in Hillsborough, California, and while she has never been to Lebanon, she says she feels strong links to that part of her heritage. “If I’m behind someone, I’m always trying to plan the next move – where are their weaknesses, where am I catching them, where can I pass them? So for me, I’m always thinking when I’m in the race car. She describes her driving style, honed over the past 12 years, first in go-karts, then in open-wheel and finally stock cars, as highly calculated.īreidinger describes her driving style, honed first in go-karts, then in open-wheel and finally stock cars, as highly calculated. So as soon as I’m in the car and the engine is on, I’m a whole different person.” “I feel like I’m a very calm and chill person in real life, but once you get into a race car, you have to just change into being aggressive and reacting super-fast. “When I’m in a race car, I just flip a switch in my head,” she says.

Female arca drivers