Hailie Deegan
Hailie Rochelle Deegan is an American professional stock car racing driver. She currently competes full-time in the ARCA Menards Series, driving the No. 4 Ford Fusion for DGR-Crosley. Deegan is currently a Ford Racing Development driver and formerly a Toyota Racing Development driver.
Deegan grew up racing off-road and on dirt but transitioned to competing on asphalt in 2016 to pursue a career in stock car racing. She began her career in NASCAR in 2018 at the NASCAR K&N Pro Series level. She is the only female to have won races in the K&N Pro Series, doing so in the 2018 and 2019 seasons. She is the daughter of Brian Deegan.
Off-road racing
Deegan began riding dirt bikes at age seven and began racing at the age of eight, running in off-road series. She eventually competed in the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, where she became the first female to win a championship, doing so in the 2013 Junior 2 Karts season. Deegan became the Modified Kart Regional Champion in 2015 and became the Modified Kart National Champion the following year. She was also named 2016 Lucas Oil Off Road Driver of the Year. She continued to race full-time in the Pro Lite division of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series in 2017.Asphalt racing
In 2016, Deegan began her transition to asphalt racing by driving legends cars for Rev Racing. In 2017, she made her asphalt late model debut with a pair of CARS Super Late Model Tour starts, first at Tri-County Motor Speedway, and later at Hickory Motor Speedway.NASCAR
Deegan was a NASCAR Drive for Diversity member in 2016, and she received the NASCAR Diversity Young Racer award the following year. In May 2017, Deegan was one of nine drivers named to the 2017 NASCAR Next class, in which she was both the youngest member and the only female member. She also became a member of Toyota's driver development program.2018: K&N Pro Series, first victory
On January 3, 2018, Deegan was announced as a full-time driver in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West for Bill McAnally Racing, a team that had won the West Series championship each of the three previous seasons. It was announced that she would also run a part-time schedule for McAnally in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. Deegan was the only female driver who competed full-time in either 2018 K&N Series. Deegan made her debut in the season-opening East Series race at New Smyrna Speedway on February 11, where she started ninth but retired on lap 19 due to mechanical problems. On March 15, Deegan made her West Series debut at Kern County Raceway Park, finishing seventh. Kevin Harvick, NASCAR's 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion, battled for position with Deegan at the end of the race and was impressed with her performance, saying, "If I had to pick one person to say, 'Alright, that's the personAt Sonoma, Deegan qualified third and received her high school diploma during driver introductions. She went on to finish seventh in the race, earning her sixth top-ten finish in six West Series races. In her next race at Roseburg, Deegan finished second behind her BMR teammate, Derek Kraus, setting a new mark for her best career finish in the series and tying Kenzie Ruston, Nicole Behar, and Julia Landauer for the record for best K&N Pro Series finish by a female driver.
At the Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Deegan qualified on pole position for the Star Nursery 100, becoming the first woman in NASCAR history to win a pole at the K&N level. Despite a shifter issue during the first half of the race, she led 13 laps and equalled her career best result of second in the event. On September 29, Deegan became the first woman to win at the K&N Pro Series level, taking the victory at the NAPA Auto Parts Idaho 208 at Meridian Speedway in Idaho. Deegan passed her BMR teammate Cole Rouse on the final lap, which ended up being the only lap she led throughout the race. Her win was the first for a female in a NASCAR touring race since Shawna Robinson in the now-defunct NASCAR Dash Series. With a sixth-place finish two races later at the K&N West season finale at Kern County, Deegan closed the year by clinching Rookie of the Year honors for the series.
2019: Return to K&N competition, ARCA debut
Deegan returned to BMR in 2019 for another full and partial schedule in the K&N West and East Series respectively. At the East season-opening race at New Smyrna, qualifying was rained out, allowing Deegan to inherit pole position after setting the fastest practice time. Deegan led the first six laps but eventually retired from the race, finishing 16th after suffering a mechanical issue at New Smyrna for the second consecutive year. Prior to the 2019 season, the Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's race date was moved to serve as the season-opening race for the West Series. Deegan earned her second career K&N Pro Series win in the event with another last-lap pass, this time on Sunrise Ford Racing's Jagger Jones.On March 1, 2019, Deegan announced plans to compete in six races for Venturini Motorsports in the ARCA Menards Series. Deegan made her series debut at Toledo in Venturini's No. 55 Toyota Camry on May 19. She ranked 12th in both practice and qualifying, finishing 18th and last after being involved in a crash with Joe Graf Jr. Deegan showed frustration with Graf on social media after the race, declaring she was "done playing nice." At Colorado National Speedway, Deegan earned her third career K&N West win, though some deemed the victory controversial as she spun out Kraus, her teammate, for the win on the final lap. Deegan took pole position at the following race in Sonoma, though she never led a lap in the race and finished eighth after late-race contact with teammate Lawless Alan.
In August, Deegan made her debut for the DGR-Crosley team at the second K&N East race at Bristol. Despite having originally announced the race as part of her schedule with Venturini, she confirmed she would run the event for DGR in their No. 54 Toyota Camry. At the combined East and West Series race at Gateway later that month, Deegan struggled and only managed a ninth-place finish while also sparking an argument with series veteran Todd Souza. Deegan and Souza made contact late in the race, with Souza calling her driving "disrespectful."
Deegan scored her first ARCA top-five finish in October at Indianapolis Raceway Park. The following weekend, she had a strong performance at Roseville in K&N West, setting the fastest time in both practice sessions, winning the pole, and finishing second in the race. Deegan ended the 2019 season with a fourth-place finish at ISM Raceway, clinching third in the final championship point standings.
2020: Move to Ford, DGR-Crosley
Deegan switched from Toyota's development driver program to Ford's at the end of 2019, signing a full-time ARCA Menards Series contract with DGR-Crosley, which themselves had announced a move to Ford the previous week. She cited Toyota's lack of available teams relative to their number of drivers as the reason for the switch, explaining, "there's so many Toyota drivers and there's not many seats. I think we made the best decision for my career long-term." Deegan's father Brian stated that she would focus on ARCA in 2020 to prepare her for the higher levels of NASCAR.At the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, Deegan ran the fastest lap time in the opening practice session. Despite a mid-race incident with Chuck Hiers, she would go on to finish second in the race behind Michael Self, tying Robinson and Erin Crocker for best ARCA finish by a woman. She followed with three consecutive seventh-place finishes before finishing third at Lucas Oil Raceway, tying the series record for best finish by a female driver on a short track.
IMSA
Deegan's move to Ford in 2020 included a foray into the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge with Multimatic Motorsports. She will run select races in the 2020 series, beginning with the season-opener at Daytona with co-driver Chase Briscoe.At her debut at Daytona, Deegan and Briscoe finished 43rd out of 51 cars. The pair's No. 22 Ford GT4 ran as high as 15th but developed mechanical problems about three hours into the four-hour event.