gettyimages-465481827.jpg
Getty Images

Despite being a five-time NBA All-Star and Cleveland Cavaliers great, Brad Daugherty was never able to reach basketball's mountaintop. He got to the Eastern Conference finals just once, and his former North Carolina Tar Heel teammate Michael Jordan's dynasty would end up getting in the way of his ambition. But now, some 30 years later, Daugherty can now lay claim to one of sports' greatest prizes from one of his life's great passions.

Daugherty won his first Daytona 500 as a car owner this past Sunday. He's the co-owner of JTG Daugherty Racing and the No. 47 Chevrolet driven to Victory Lane by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The win was the culmination of a lifelong passion for Daugherty: He wore No. 43 on the Cavaliers as a nod to Richard Petty, who was his boyhood hero growing up in Black Mountain, N.C. He attended races at New Asheville Speedway, where he would become close personal friends with future NASCAR Cup Series driver Robert Pressley as well as his car owner, even as his basketball career was on the rise.

All of that led Daugherty to victory in the Daytona 500, where he became the first Black car owner to ever win The Great American Race alongside co-owners and longtime business partners Jodi and Tad Geschickter. Recent eye surgery forced Daugherty to leave Daytona International Speedway the morning of the race and watch from home, but he shared his thoughts and initial reaction to winning the 500 with NASCAR.com.

"I sat there for a second. And I was like … We just won the Daytona 500. I realized I was by myself, but I was like, 'OK, this is really great, because you're talking to yourself,'" Daugherty said. "And then I just went nuts. So then my phone started ringing — people from NASCAR calling me, the team was calling me … everybody. I was just like, this is unbelievable. This is an unbelievable moment in NASCAR history, for a little race team at Harrisburg, and for a team that just doesn't quit."

Daugherty's standing as a member of a select fraternity of African-American racers was a major part of his Daytona 500 victory, as he acknowledged the efforts and contributions of others in his peer group such as Tinsley Hughes, Bill Lester, and the late Sam Belnavis as well as longtime rival Michael Jordan -- who the Geschickters joked Daugherty was already talking trash to during their post-race press conference.

"I get to stand here as the first African-American owner to get to hoist that Harley J. Earl trophy. Man, we've made history. This is historical, and nobody can take that from us or take that from me," Daugherty said. "I'm so proud, and I look forward to hoisting more trophies with my race team. And as we move forward, just a lot of pride. We're not one of these big, massive race teams.

"We're a little, small group of about 50 people, and we just go out every day and beat and bang, and grind and hustle, and there's a lot of times a lot of days, a lot of nights, man, we get our teeth kicked in. It's just absolutely what happens. But on days like Sunday, man, it's all worth it. It's all worth it. This has all been worth it."

Daugherty's Daytona 500 win is by far the biggest of a career that has seen him win as a car owner in all three of NASCAR's national touring series. His first win came at Orange County Speedway in what is now the Xfinity Series in 1989 with Pressley behind the wheel, and he also won two Craftsman Truck Series races in 1997 with the late Kenny Irwin Jr. Prior to Sunday, Daugherty's lone win as a Cup car owner had come in 2014, when A.J. Allmendinger won for JTG Daugherty at Watkins Glen.