(CNN)NASCAR racing team owner Brad Daugherty made history Sunday by becoming the first Black principal owner to win the Daytona 500 when driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the storied race in double overtime.
"America doesn't just look like the people in the garage have looked like for 55 years," Tad Geschickter -- who owns JTG Daugherty Racing with his wife, Jodi Geschickter, and Daugherty -- said in a press conference after the win. "It's diverse and everyone has different points of view and different talents and treasures.
"Brad certainly adds a different element to what we do and different thinking and a different background, and I think it's the same from engineering to tire changers to drivers. It's sorely needed."
Daugherty, who had eye surgery recently, had been on site Sunday morning to visit with the team's sponsors but left after the light was bothering his eyes, Geschickter said.
Daugherty's first act in professional sport came on the NBA hardwood. The Cleveland Cavaliers selected him No. 1 overall in the 1986 NBA Draft and he went on to play eight seasons with the Cavaliers before back trouble kept him off the court.
In Daugherty's NBA days, the Cavaliers were haunted by a certain Chicago Bulls star named Michael Jordan, who is also famously now a NASCAR team owner himself.