Dystany Spurlock’s road from 18-wheelers to NASCAR as first Black woman driver

It wasn’t that long ago that Dystany Spurlock was driving tractor-trailers.

The 34-year-old Virginia native has a commercial driver’s license and would find work hauling all kinds of things with an 18-wheeler, from trash to crushed cars to construction materials. It was one of a few odd jobs she had — being a flight attendant was another — that helped fund her pursuit of a career in professional motorsports.

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Spurlock has won drag races with motorcycles and competed in Formula 4, but ever since she was a kid growing up a stone’s throw away from the Richmond Raceway, NASCAR has been her ultimate goal. She was sitting on the back of the motorcycles her parents drove as early as the age of 3, riding on the lawnmower in her grandfather’s lap and cheering for Dale Earnhardt on race days.

“Every Sunday, NASCAR was going to be on the TV,” Spurlock told USA TODAY Sports recently. “My grandfather would open the door because we were two miles from Richmond Raceway, and it was something about being able to hear them outside when they were there and watching it on TV. It just really awakened something in me. So, I’ve always been a NASCAR girly.

“Ever since I was that little girl watching it… I just knew I liked to go fast. And then as I grew up, I’m like, ‘OK, how am I going to do this?”

Spurlock is getting her opportunity to make her mark in NASCAR. And she’s will make history when she does.

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On Friday, May 8, at Watkins Glen, Spurlock will become the first Black woman to race in one of NASCAR’s top three touring competitions when she pilots the No. 69 Foxxtecca Toyota for MBM Motorsports and Garage 66 in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Spurlock will pull double duty that day at the Glen as she’s also competing in the ARCA Menards Series General Tire 100. The ARCA race is first, followed by the truck race a few hours later. This will be the fourth ARCA race Spurlock has driven in this season and she’s finished inside the top 12 in each of her three previous entries at Hickory, Rockingham and Kansas.

“I’m so excited about Watkins Glen because with my Formula 4 experience, I’m getting back on a road course. I’ve never raced there, but I have already been in the (simulation rig),” Spurlock said. “It’s very similar to (Formula 4 road courses). Of course, the only difference is, I’m not paddle shifting now, I’m actually shifting — but I did that for nine years in a tractor trailer. So I’m good.”

ARCA is sort of like NASCAR’s minor leagues and one of the first major steps along the ladder to getting to the top of the sport where the Cup Series resides. Spurlock made her ARCA debut at Hickory Motor Speedway in North Carolina on March 28 and finished seventh, quickly impressing the field and showing other drivers this wasn’t a stunt — she was serious.

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Spurlock continued to gain respect when she finished 12th at Rockingham on April 4. She turned heads and got fans talking on April 18, where she pulled off an incredible save after getting pushed down the track by eventual winner Gio Ruggiero. After Ruggiero plowed into the left side of her bumper and turned her nose toward the infield, Spurlock was able to keep the car from spinning or entering the grass, regaining her control on the apron.

Her No. 66 Ford Mustang would go on to finish 10th, but the save garnered Spurlock some admiration from other drivers in the garage.

“Bobby Earnhardt came up to me and was like, ‘Girl, I saw that scene, you definitely made a believer out of me. Don’t stop,’” Spurlock said. “That was the highlight of Kansas for me, other drivers coming up and embracing me.”

Because of Spurlock’s strong debut in the ARCA — she’s the first Black woman to drive in the series — she plans to race as much as she can this season at that level. In ARCA’s East Series standings, she’s sixth in points.

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This year for Spurlock is all about learning and improving, she said. In a perfect world, she is aiming to make her debut in the Cup Series within the next three years, where she would be, of course, pursuing more history.

But Spurlock is no stranger to being the first or only woman to do something. At Highland Springs High School, she was the only girl on her tackle football team where she played defensive back.

“That was the beginning of me doing something in a male dominated field and then it just kept going — tractor trailers, racing motorcycles, NASCAR,” Spurlock said. “To me, it’s normal, because that’s all I know. It does not faze me at all.”

Spurlock had been drag racing motorcycles for a long time, beginning at the age of 16, and pulled off a lot of firsts in that sport too. In 2024, she made history as the first woman to win the DME Racing Real Street class in the XDA Motorcycle Drag Racing Series with a run at 178 miles per hour. A year later, she debuted in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle.

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Not only has a Black woman never raced in NASCAR, but no woman has ever won a race in the Truck Series, the second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series or at the Cup level. Still, Spurlock doesn’t feel much pressure as she breaks down barriers in stockcar racing.

“I’ve broken a lot of records before. I’ve been the first in a lot of things. So that was never any pressure on me,” Spurlock said. “This is my passion. This is what I love. And I don’t race for me. Yes, I love racing, but I do this for the other generation that’s coming up. Because my story is, everybody gatekept everything. Nobody told me what I needed to do to get to NASCAR. I literally had to go through the mud to figure it out.”

Foxxtecca — which bills itself as an experiential media and events company based in Detroit — has sponsored Spurlock all season and is producing a docuseries “Driven by Dystany: The Road to NASCAR” about her journey. The company co-founded by Chris Harris and Kellie Crawford has funded Spurlock’s dream and historic pursuit and helped her unlock the gates that kept her out of the sport for so long.

“I’ve had so many doors shut in my face. I’ve had so many people overpromise and underdeliver. You have to have the money, be born into it, or you just have to have some miraculous connection with someone that can get you there. And once I realized I didn’t have any of those, that’s when I just focused on drag racing motorcycles, because I could afford to do it myself,” Spurlock said. “That’s when Foxxtecca came in… They called me and were like, ‘Put your two weeks in, find a house in North Carolina.’”

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Spurlock left 18-wheelers behind and is now focused on stockcar racing. With her CDL though, if she does make it all the way to the Cup Series, she’ll be able to drive her own hauler into the infield. The thought of that image makes her smile.

“I’m definitely pulling up to the track in it,” Spurlock says. “One time, and that’s it.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Dystany Spurlock became NASCAR’s first Black woman driver