Daytona 500 win “almost overwhelming” for Brad Daugherty

Daugherty, the former NBA star and part owner of JTG Daugherty Racing, became the first Black owner in the Cup Series to win the Daytona 500 when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. took the checkered flag last Sunday.

For JTG, it was just the second Cup win in the team’s 14-year existence – the first came in 2014 with driver A.J. Allmendinger at Watkins Glen, N.Y. – but this one came on the sport’s grandest stage.

And for Daugherty it was well worth the wait.

Asked to anything comparable in his NBA career, Daugherty recalled beating Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and the rest of the Boston Celtics in a thrilling overtime game in the 1992 NBA playoffs.

“I had the same emotions,” Daugherty, 57, said of his team winning the 500. “I’m not driving the race car. I’m not shooting the jump hook or the free throw, but I’ve put so much blood, sweat and tears into this sport of NASCAR racing, that it was almost overwhelming, you know.

“People ask which is better. It’s not which is better. They’re both tremendous blessings to have been a part of and I was as excited Sunday at the end of that race and when we won that race as when we beat those guys in the Boston Garden.

“All of those things are part of a fantastic journey and a very blessed and lucky journey.”

Daugherty’s backstory as a NASCAR owner

While Daugherty has become a fixture in NASCAR both as an owner and a TV analyst for NBC Sports, his owner role in NASCAR wasn’t always so apparent.

Entering the 1989 season, Daugherty had formed a new team in what is now called the Xfinity Series along with driver Robert Pressley.

Although the sport’s official statistics now recognize him as the owner, it wasn’t public knowledge at the time.

“We go to fill out the entry forms,” Daugherty explained, “and (Pressley) was like, ‘Man, you know, racing isn’t the most diverse place, Brad. Everybody loves you. But I think I’ll just put my name down as owner because I don’t want any issues or problems with NASCAR.’

“There we no Black owners. He was like, ‘Are you cool with that?’ I said, ‘I don’t care about that. I want to go racing.’ That’s how we started. As it turned out, we won at Orange County (Speedway) so I was the first rookie owner with a rookie driver to win in the Busch Series.”

Unfortunately, Daugherty…