Photo: Matt Fraver
Hailie Deegan has explained that her transition from stock car racing to single-seaters has been inspired by previous experiences of racing on road courses.
The 23-year-old has been on the NASCAR ladder since 2018, reaching the second-tier Xfinity Series where she contested a half-season this year with a best finish of 12th.
In the third-tier Truck Series she claimed two sixth places in her three seasons, and she is a race-winner at the regional level of stock car racing in the USA. When racing in ARCA’s western series, Deegan claimed a pole position and finished seventh at Sonoma Raceway.
She raced at Circuit of the Americas, Watkins Glen, Sonoma and Mid-Ohio in NASCAR’s third tier, with a 10th place at the last of those tracks her best road course result. Her NASCAR Xfinity experience included three road course races.
On the Speed Street podcast hosted by IndyCar driver Conor Daly, Deegan revealed that when that campaign came to an end she “didn’t really linger very much” and in July started planning what she to do next based on budget she had available and what sponsors were willing to commit for 2025.
She probed old friends in the IndyCar scene for information about options on that series’ support ladder, and attended the races at Iowa Speedway.
“When we started weighing out me as a driver, my pros and cons, what my best qualities in my driving are, [I figured] I like high-grip stuff,” Deegan recalled.
“Tracks here are wide open a lot. I love road courses. Besides this past year, some of my best runs have been on road courses. And best overall [statistically]. Best qualifyings and all that. The IMSA [Pilot Challenge] stuff on top of that. I did good in that side. So I was like ‘man, maybe we should really look at this avenue.”
Deegan had contested IMSA PC’s four-hour endurance race on Daytona International Speedway’s roval layout in 2023, and finished third overall in a GT4 car.
Her interest in a single-seater switch piqued the interest of many, and Deegan made it a reality two weekends ago by contesting Formula Regional Americas’s finale at COTA. She qualified 10th out of 15 drivers, and finished the two races in 11th and 10th.
Deegan did an Indy Nxt test before that, and will join the second-tier series next season on a multi-year contract. The test exposed her to the fact “you feel like your head’s going to rip off; that’s something that I’m definitely having to get used to”.
“I wrote down my goals already for the year before I even drove the car, and none of them have finishing places on them,” she said, emphasising her 2025 focus is just learning.
“I want to learn the dynamics of these cars. I don’t want to go and say: ‘oh, I’m tight or loose or understeer, oversteer.’ I don’t want to do that when I can say: ‘I want to make this change. I want to do this, that.’”