Becoming a champion NASCAR driver is a goal she’s been aiming toward for quite some time. She has been successful at drag racing and on the shorter tracks circuit known as the late models, where she gained two top-15 finishes. “Around the age of 14 is when I really, really knew that this was what I wanted to do for a living; this was my passion,” she stated in an interview with the Huffington Post.
“My finest memory of my racing experience would be when I was about 5.I had a little Corvette car, and my dad put two car batteries in it. I literally drove that car until the wheels fell off. Ever since then, I’ve just been so enthused about motorsports.”
Her father, Bobby Norfleet was a fairly prominent driver himself throughout the ’90s, and is credited with helping the sport gain traction in the African-American community. He lists his three mentors as NASCAR champion Wendell Scott, Hall of Fame driver Alan Kulwicki and singer Gladys Knight, who told him: “Whatever I do for you, you better be willing to do it for somebody else.” Taking that advice to heart, when his daughter began to take a keen interest in the sport, he in turn shifted his focus.
“As a young girl, I knew she had the desire to do it,” Bobby says. “I sort of stepped back on myself and my driving to spend the time on her.” “The talent, that has to be groomed but [she had] the drive and the ambition to do it. [It was] nothing I or her mom ever pushed her into, so that’s half the battle right there. The rest of it is being taught the racing business, and then being taught the discipline of racing. Because racing is not just getting in the car and driving.” And for that, Tia is grateful. “I look up to my dad,” she says. I’ve seen the good and the bad through his eyes.” The “bad” can mean anything from leeches to fake promises to non-sports crises.
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