Here’s how former UM soccer player Dalanda Ouendeno became a NASCAR tire changer
Dalanda Ouendeno grew up in Paris playing soccer and went on to become a successful defender for Paris Saint-Germain and the University of Miami. She arrived in the United States without a driver’s license, had never changed a tire and the only auto racing she had ever heard of was Formula 1.
This weekend, after an improbable journey, Ouendeno, 23, will be at the Homestead Motor Speedway, on the NASCAR pit crew team with the Rick Ware Racing Team. She is one of four women who graduated from NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, the first foreign-born graduate, and has been a tire changer since 2019.
“I had never even heard of NASCAR, to be honest, and I knew nothing about cars because in Paris you don’t need a car, you ride the Metro,” Ouendeno said. “But my senior year at UM, I got an e-mail from the athletic department saying NASCAR was having tryouts for student-athletes, so I kept an open mind and figured I’d give it a try.”
She competed in a regional combine at UM, along with athletes from other sports, and was one of just 12 athletes nationwide to be invited to the national combine in Concord, North Carolina. She was the first soccer player ever invited and did so well she was selected for the six-month training program.
Through the Drive for Diversity program, NASCAR teams recruit former college and professional athletes to work on pit crews, which makes sense for jobs where strength, speed, agility, competitiveness, teamwork and ability to perform under pressure are critical.
In the past, out-of-shape mechanics spent all week in the garage and then pit crewed on weekends. Nowadays, tire changers, gasmen and jackmen prepare for races by running and lifting weights under the guidance of conditioning coaches. Their race-day performances are taped and dissected, just like football, basketball, and soccer players. A mistake of three-tenths of a second could cost you your job.
The Drive for Diversity program was launched 14 years ago with the dual aim of finding athletic pit crew members and diversifying the sport. Phil Horton, a former athletic trainer for Florida A&M University and the Milwaukee Bucks, began training NASCAR drivers in the mid-1990s, and his fitness philosophy spread.
Under his direction, NASCAR began holding NFL-style combines. It turned out lineman and linebackers make good jackmen and gasmen. Receivers, running backs, defensive backs, hockey players, soccer players and basketball players make good tire changers.
“I never imagined I’d be doing something mechanical with my life, but I kept an open mind and now I know so much about cars,” Ouendeno said. “It’s very exciting and super rewarding. I have to use my speed and footwork to run around the cars and it takes the same mindset as when I played soccer, being able to perform under pressure on race day.”
Ouendeno has been focusing on upper body, shoulder and forearm strength, which she did not need as much when she played soccer.
Although women are still rare on pit crews, especially black women, Ouendeno said she feels welcome. Her mentor is Brehanna Daniels, a former Norfolk State point guard who was the first black woman to be a NASCAR tire changer. In 2018, Daniels and Breanna O’Leary, a former Alcorn State softball player, became the first female Drive for Diversity graduates to pit in the Daytona 500.
Ouendeno joined them in the pits at the most recent Daytona 500.
“They are doing a good job of bringing diversity to NASCAR,” she said. “And the transition from being athletes to being on a pit crew is smooth. Being a woman of color, it’s still different, but things are changing. I talk to Brehanna Daniels a lot. She has offered me a lot of guidance. I haven’t faced any kind of backlash.”
When she first informed her parents that should had decided to become a NASCAR tire changer after college, they were a bit skeptical. But she sent them photos and videos, and the more she explained, the more supportive they became.
“In the end, they are really supportive, and just told me to be careful because auto racing can be dangerous,” Ouendeno said. “I have two brothers and they can’t believe what I’m doing. Every night I think about how cool it is that I’m doing this. It seems odd, in a way, but I’m really passionate about it, and it’s still a sport.”