This year’s Speedweeks at Daytona didn’t go exactly how Natalie Decker had drawn it up.
From an on-track incident in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series event for which she drew substantial criticism, to a social media post with comedian Burt Kreischer that some considered to be risque, and even an errant social media clip from a podcast appearance the week before, Decker left Daytona Beach, Florida, with enough controversy to rattle even the most tenured drivers in NASCAR.
Decker, a part-time competitor in NASCAR’s second-tier division, secured a ride for the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, a racetrack where she made history in 2020 as the first woman to score a top-five in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Working with a brand-new sponsor, T.N. Dickinson’s, the Eagle River, Wisconsin-native joined forces with Joey Gase Motorsports to drive the No. 35 Chevrolet Camaro in the United Rentals 300. After making the field, it didn’t take long for things to go awry.
Before the field even crossed the start-finish line to begin the 300-mile contest, a stackup occurred when somebody ahead missed a shift, causing a chain reaction accident that punched a hole in the nose of Decker’s machine. The damage wasn’t serious, but the 28-year-old driver says that to get in the draft, she had to have someone behind her supporting her, and the car wouldn’t suck up as well.
Then, there was the more notable incident, where a multi-car accident broke out in Turn 2 on Lap 91 of the United Rentals 300. Decker, who was riding behind the incident in the pack, looked to slow down for the wreck when the No. 41 of Sam Mayer came right back up the racetrack into the path of Decker.
The impact itself was substantial, and led to a radio communication from Decker asking why the No. 41 came up the racetrack — to which it was later determined, courtesy of Sam Mayer that the vehicle had no brakes and couldn’t steer.
Within seconds, social media was ablaze with a litany of people trashing Decker for the accident, both inside and outside of the industry. Now, nearly two weeks later, Decker joined Samantha Busch on the Certified Oversharer Podcast to give her side of the story on the wreck, plus what was a trying Speedweeks.
“I remember coming into Turn 1 just a bit before that [my spotter] saying ‘They’re wrecking out of Turn 2’, and he’s like slow down, slow down, slow down, and that’s exactly what I started to do, and I feel like you don’t see this part on the replay because I was so far behind the whole thing that was happening, and as soon as my spotter said okay, the wreck is clear, go high, come through, that’s what I did,” Decker said. “I mean, he can see everything. I can’t see Turn 2. I had no idea what it looked like. I was really trying to listen and do what he was telling me to do.”
“I never had any warning from my spotter that he was rolling back until he was in my windshield,” she added. “I was wide-open at that point because my spotter was telling me to hurry and come back through, and I was doing that exact same thing, and all of a sudden, he was just right there.”
That destroyed her blue-and-yellow No. 35 T.N. Dickinson’s Chevrolet and resulted in a 33rd-place finish, her worst result in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series since August 2023 at Daytona, where she also got involved in an accident. Decker wasn’t seriously injured, but left Speedweeks with bruises on her collarbone and arms.
Sure, the criticism that followed what she figured was a pretty innocuous wreck, considering what she experienced in the racecar, may have been a tad heavy and harsh, but being in the atmosphere of racing for her entire life, Decker says the sport — especially at its highest levels — can be very cutthroat.
“In general, the sport is pretty cutthroat,” Decker said. “You either love the driver, or you don’t, and people like to speak their opinions strongly… and meanly. So, I don’t think it matters if it’s a boy or a girl in the driver’s seat. I think if they make a mistake or have a bad day, or say something in an interview that their haters don’t like, they’re going to get eaten alive for it. That’s just how it is.”
In the year 2026, those comments don’t bother Decker, but admittedly, six or seven years ago, all of this backlash would have sent her spiraling. Whether that has happened because Decker has been a part of the sport for so long, and has gotten acclimated to the nature of the beast, or just because she’s recently become a mother, she doesn’t know.
The criticism that hit differently for Decker, though, was from other women in the racing industry.
“It feels different because no matter what, I feel like women should always support women, even if they don’t agree with what the other girl is doing,” Decker said. “But, I feel so detached from the community, in a good way, where I don’t choose to hang out with my competitors or people in the sport when we have time off, I choose to hang out with my family. It’s my parents, my husband, my son, and I; we do our own thing, and it feels kind of nice, because when we go to the track, we go there to work. It does suck, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”
Decker feels like, at least for the most part, when it comes to the negative comments from other women in the racing space, it isn’t about the accident at all, but instead about a social media post she made earlier in the weekend where she posed with comedian Burt Kreischer with her shirt off and firesuit around her waist.
“I don’t know if I feel misunderstood because I feel like a lot of the hate is coming from my picture with Bert Kreischer, the comedian, from the women, and they just might not agree with it and that’s fine because I’m a big fan of Bert, I’ve watched him for years, and when I had this opportunity to meet him, and it was so spontanious and in the moment, and the people who truly know me, they know [that’s me].”
The most interesting part of that entire interaction, that nobody has talked about leading up to Decker’s interview with Samantha Busch, was that she and her husband, Derek, who serves as her business manager, checked with T.N. Dickinson’s about taking that picture, to which the sponsor said “when in rome”.
What all of this boils down to, though, is a decision that Decker made a couple of years ago, while fighting to run a part-time schedule in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, to stop being confined to the small box that female drivers in NASCAR are put into and instead choose to be completely and authentically herself.
“It’s hard to be a woman in this sport because I feel like we’re under a microscope, but regardless, being in the sport, male or female, on the crew or racing the car, it doesn’t matter it’s a difficult sport, and everyone who is in the sport has worked their butts off to be here,” Decker added. “From the engineers to the crew chiefs to the spotters to the drivers, over the wall people, everyone is working so hard to be in the sport, and it’s so difficult to be here.”
As difficult as it is to make it in a sport like NASCAR, Decker has made it quite clear to those paying attention that she is not going away. In fact, on the podcast, Decker confirmed that T.N. Dickinson’s has signed on for an additional two NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series events at Talladega Superspeedway and Bristol Motor Speedway. Plus, a new sponsor, Venturi Bold Brew, has signed on for the Summer event at EchoPark Speedway.
That brings Decker’s confirmed schedule for the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series up to five events — Daytona, Talladega, Bristol, Pocono, and EchoPark-2 — with even more potentially on the horizon in the future. As things stand, this would match her busiest season in NASCAR’s second-tier division.
