Toni Breidinger is living proof that NASCAR drivers are athletes too. It requires an impressive amount of stamina to handle the extreme temperature of the vehicle for such an extended period of time.
Her water bottle melted inside the truck! Literally!
The haters love to mock NASCAR for its simplicity but there is so much more to it than left turns. Drivers have to be in tremendous physical shape to handle the intense conditions of a ~2-4 hour race.
How does Toni Breidinger train for the heat?
Toni Breidinger is in her fourth year on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. The 26-year-old paired with Rackley WAR for an eight-race schedule in 2026. She made her season debut at Daytona International Speedway but failed to qualify for the Fresh From Florida 250. Her next opportunity to get on the track will come at the beginning of May!
- May 1: Texas Motor Speedway
- May 15: Dover Motor Speedway
- May 29: Nashville Superspeedway
- July 18: North Wilkesboro Speedway
- July 24: Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park
- Aug. 22: New Hampshire Motor Speedway
- Oct. 23: Talladega Superspeedway
In the meantime, Breidinger continues to train both her mind and her body for her next race. That includes a highly-intensive heat training regimen. The sport is just as much physical as it is mental. She has to split her time accordingly.
I spoke with Breidinger about her weekly routine last season, as well as how she handles the haters (and losers) as a female driver in a male-dominated sport. It is intense!
“Toyota gives us a really dialed-in program between cardio, strength and heat training. Because the cars get really hot. It’s disgusting how hot it gets sometimes. I wear a heart rate monitor when I race and my heart rate can get insanely high, to like over 200 for two hours.”
That is something on which she was working— to decrease her heart rate while in the car.
“The hotter that your body’s internal core temperature gets… every degree raises your heartbeat by about 10 beats per minute. If you’re just hot, and you aren’t used to the heat, then your heart rate is going to automatically be high. It obviously gets even higher when you’re controlling a high-speed motor vehicle for an extended period of time. So I do a lot of cardio but our specific heat training programs help to prepare us for that situation.”
Of course, it can be tricky to fit it all in when Breidinger is also flying around the world as a swimsuit model. She spoke to those challenges during our conversation last May.
How hot does it get inside of a NASCAR truck?
The temperature inside of a vehicle is obviously going to vary based on conditions. A hotter day on the track is going to make it hotter inside the vehicle. An engine that has to exert more energy will increase the amount of heat it releases.A lack of air conditioning does not help to keep the drivers cool.
You get the idea. Generally speaking, cars and/or trucks regularly reach an internal temperature of 130-150º Fahrenheit. Yeesh.
Kyle Larson spoke about the driving conditions during an interview with Jimmy Fallon during the offseason. He admitted that it can be pretty miserable, especially in the summer months.
Drivers wear fire-retardant suits and use helmet blowers to try and combat the harsh conditions. They also drink a lot of water. Somewhere between 20-40 ounces of fluid per hour. Except that is not possible if the water bottle does not stay in tact!
Toni Breidinger recently shared a video of her post-race reality at Martinsville. Not only was the plastic on her bottle melted, the water inside the bottle was hot enough to turn to steam.
Scientifically speaking, under standard atmospheric pressure at sea level, water must reach 212º Fahrenheit to boil and turn into steam. I can’t imagine that would be super refreshing on a hot summer day inside of a 150º NASCAR truck…