- Hailie Deegan finished 17th and 21st in her first two NASCAR Truck Series seasons, and stood 19th this season when the news broke last week that she was being promoted to the Xfinity Series.
- On the positive side, Deegan has finished 53 of her 67 Truck Series races, 37 of them on the lead lap, and isn’t overly reckless.
- She was Most Popular Driver in the Truck Series in 2021-2022, and likely will be again this year.
The recent news that Ford Performance Motorsports and AM Racing have signed Hailie Deegan to move next year from NASCAR’s third-level Craftsman Truck Series to its second-level Xfinity Series immediately brought one question to mind: Why?
Other than choosing style over substance—click-bait and media hype and marketing instead of track performance—what are Ford and AM Racing thinking? As one long-time, well-respected series-watcher said at Charlotte last weekend: “It’s all about marketing, marketing, marketing.”
Is this the same Hailie Deegan who was 17th and 21st in her first two Truck seasons, and stood 19th when the news broke last week at the NASCAR Hall of Fame; the same Hailie Deegan whose average finish was 21st and 22nd those two seasons, and whose average finish is 21st this year with championship-caliber ThorSport Racing; the same Hailie Deegan with zero top-5 finishes, only five top-10s, and just two laps led in 67 career Truck Series starts?
Yeah, that’s the one. Again, the question: why?
On the other hand… she’s finished 53 of those 67 races, 37 of them on the lead lap, and isn’t overly reckless; she was Most Popular Driver in the Truck Series in 2021-2022, and likely will be again this year; she’s been near the top among racers in the “Most Impressions” category in a national social media poll; her web site has almost 1.5 million followers and she generally draws huge crowds to her hauler and truck on race weekends; her social media presence is among the strongest of any driver in any NASCAR series.
Perhaps this is, indeed, a case of “marketing, marketing, marketing.”
But maybe not completely. After all, she was decent (finished a lead-lap 13th) in her only Xfinity Series start last year at Las Vegas. More impressively, she’s shown well in several SRX events against championship drivers with far more talent and experience. She drew high praise from Tony Stewart after he barely beat her in an SRX shootout at Eldora last summer. In 2018—after a K&N West race in California—Kevin Harvick said she had done “really, really well, a great job” and praised her “racing potential, experience, knowledge, and reach.”
Despite that Truck Series mediocrity—and maybe recognizing the marketing potential—the 22-year-old Californian landed that “multi-year” deal with Ford and AM Racing to join Xfinity racing. As expected, everyone involved has said all the right things.
From Deegan: “I think the conversations with everybody in the industry selling me on getting to Xfinity has gone a long way in reassuring me that, ‘OK, I think this is really the right step for me and direction of my career.”
From AM Racing president Wade Moore: “She’s very committed, very passionate, has a lot to prove, and has a lot of room to grow. Maybe she hasn’t lived up to even her own expectations, but we still have a lot of room for growth. Ford believes in her and Ford is going to continue to stay behind her.”
From Mark Rushbrook, head of Ford Performance Motorsports: “We’re excited to see Hailie continuing to advance her career by running full-time in Xfinity in 2024. She works so hard on and off the track, and AM Racing will surround her with a great team to continue her development.”
Deegan was still a pre-teen when she began racing go-karts and off-road. After doing well both on-track and in the marketing arena, she became a Ford Development Driver at the end of 2019. Based on her ARCA Menards Series record—three victories as a teenager in 70 combined starts—the company did a huge Dearborn rollout when she signed with David Gilliland’s truck team. Moore said next year’s Xfinity deal comes with Ford’s acknowledgement that her Truck results have included struggles as she gets acclimated to the national-series stage.
Hailie Deegan impressed more experienced racers with her performances in the Superstar Racing Experience races.
It is rare—but not unprecedented—for a struggling driver in a lower series to succeed one level up. Jimmie Johnson was an unimpressive 1-for-93 Xfinity driver before he became a seven-time Cup champion. Granted, he never struggled in Xfinity as Deegan has in Trucks, so almost anything she does going forward will be an improvement. In contrast, NASCAR has plenty of race- and championship-winning Truck Series drivers who never did much at a higher level.
Drivers with experience in Trucks and Xfinity spoke cautiously about Deegan’s move. Some thought she’d be fine because (they said) Xfinity is easier than Craftsman, where drivers aren’t very respectful of each other. Some straddled the politically-correct fence and hedged their bets. Others suggested she’ll have trouble adjusting to cars, tougher competition, and longer races after three years in trucks.
“There aren’t as many high-profile Xfinity teams as there used to be,” said Kyle Busch a multi-time Truck, Xfinity, and Cup winner. “There are still some good drivers, but there’s not as much good equipment as before. A lot of it depends on equipment and the team she’s with and the circumstances. She might find a home in Xfinity because if you’re not good in Trucks you won’t be good if you ever get to Cup.”
Former Daytona 500 and Indy 400 winner Michael McDowell has driven only a few Truck races, but wasn’t worried that Deegan will find the transition too difficult. “We’ve seen it before, when someone excels in one series more than the series they came from,” he said. “She might find Xfinity cars better-suited to her style. There’s some evidence of that based on her performance in last year’s Xfinity race at Las Vegas.”
Erik Jones, a winner in each of NASCAR’s top levels, was cautiously realistic about Deegan’s move. “Every series is harder than the one before,” he said. “For me, Xfinity was 10 percent harder than Trucks and Cup has been 110 percent harder than Xfinity. The higher you go up through the series you find better drivers and better equipment and longer races. Because of all that, I can see her move as challenging.”
Again, from Deegan during a 2019 media call: “I’ve been used to pressure my whole life. It’s kind of been on me from the start, so at the end of the day there’s pressure for a reason. I feel like if you can’t deal with the pressure, then you probably shouldn’t have that pressure on you.”
Time will tell.
Contributing Editor
Unemployed after three years as an Army officer and Vietnam vet, Al Pearce shamelessly lied his way onto a small newspaper’s sports staff in Virginia in 1969. He inherited motorsports, a strange and unfamiliar beat which quickly became an obsession.
In 53 years – 48 ongoing with Autoweek – there have been thousands of NASCAR, NHRA, IMSA, and APBA assignments on weekend tracks and major venues like Daytona Beach, Indianapolis, LeMans, and Watkins Glen. The job – and accompanying benefits – has taken him to all 50 states and more than a dozen countries.
He’s been fortunate enough to attract interest from several publishers, thus his 13 motorsports-related books. He can change a tire on his Hyundai, but that’s about it.
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