Last weekend at Circuit of the Americas, Hailie Deegan posted her third straight DNF this season and her sixth in the last nine races, dating back to Bristol Motor Speedway in September 2021.
It’s enough to make an outsider wonder whether Deegan’s place is in the Camping World Truck Series.
Deegan made her Truck Series debut at Kansas Speedway in late 2020.
After starting 34th, she moved up to 25th by the end of stage two and was the first truck one lap down. A free pass allowed her to rejoin the lead lap and she was able to steer clear of the Big One that marred the stage two restart. She settled into 18th by the time stage two ended and moved into the top five during a round of green flag pit stops during stage three. Deegan ended her lone 2020 start in 16th.
Welcome to the @NASCAR_Trucks, @HailieDeegan! Deegan's P.16 finish is the best result for a female in her series debut. pic.twitter.com/eChqzFpnq3
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) October 17, 2020
During that race, Ford Performance revealed Deegan would join the Truck Series full time, driving for David Gilliland Racing beginning in 2021.
As one would expect, Deegan struggled to find her footing, most likely in large part due to the lack of practice and qualifying that forced her to run her first laps in a truck at each track during the race itself. After opening the year with six-straight finishes outside the top 15, Deegan finished 13th, 20th, 14th and 13th in the next four events.
It wasn’t until August when the series visited World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway that Deegan posted her first career top 10. In a race that was slowed by an extended red flag due to a local power outage, the driver of the No. 1 Ford was forced to avoid multiple wrecks and take home a seventh-place finish that still stands as her best thus far.
In fact, two races after that career-best finish is when this string of DNFs began.
Fast forward to the 2022 season. After posting just a single top-10 finish in her rookie season, the expectation for Deegan was that she’d enter this season with the experience needed to perform better.
But that hasn’t been the case, though her finishes don’t show what actually happened for her on race day.
At Daytona International Speedway, she was running right around the top 10 when she was caught up in the Big One on lap 99. While she was able to continue, she still limped home to a 17th-place finish and was well out of contention to even attempt an upset victory.
The following week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Deegan was caught up in two incidents within a span of fewer than 10 laps, and despite meeting the minimum speed after repairs, the damage was ultimately too much to overcome.
Atlanta Motor Speedway wasn’t much better where she ultimately was forced to retire after a big fire under the No. 1 truck.
— Hailie Deegan (@HailieDeegan) March 19, 2022
In the Truck Series’ second visit to COTA, Deegan started 23rd and climbed inside the top 20 before she was forced to serve a pass-through penalty for cutting the esses on lap 7. After struggling to stay right around the top 20 through stage two following a tight handling condition on the No. 1 truck, Deegan restarted stage three in 19th.
She got tagged in an incident between Jack Wood and Kris Wright that left her with terminal damage. The finish of 34th marked her third straight outside the top 30 and continued the free fall through the point standings to 33rd.
It’s easy to look at these first four races this season and say Deegan doesn’t belong. After all, what team would want to continue fielding a truck for a driver who’s posted three straight finishes outside the top 30 and has been involved in some sort of an incident in all four races this season?
But it’s too early to call for her removal just yet. After all, how many times have we seen a driver across all three of NASCAR’s top series struggle, especially during their sophomore season?
Derek Kraus, for example, impressed a lot of people during a rookie season where many expected he would find victory lane in 2020. The start of 2021, though? Three finishes outside the top 30 in the first five races (33rd at Daytona, 32nd at Las Vegas, 38th at Bristol Motor Speedway dirt).
Christian Eckes didn’t even get to run full-time during his sophomore season and was instead forced to split the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Toyota with Grant Enfinger. That has since put him in a position to return to running the full schedule this year.
How about Tanner Gray, who posted just one top five and two top 10s during the entirety of his sophomore season in 2021? Fast forward to this season and he’s got two top fives and three top 10s and currently sits fifth in the championship standings.
Of course, we know that there will always tend to be a bit more leeway for Deegan because of her social media appeal and marketability. But I don’t, for a second, believe that’s what will ultimately create longevity in the sport, despite what many critics would have you believe.
Deegan has been given the tools to succeed with DGR and Ford Performance in veteran crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. and veteran spotter TJ Majors. The key for the 20-year-old moving forward, though, is going to be to keep her head down and her truck out of tough situations. At this point, it’s incredibly important for Deegan to finish the next several races to take advantage of as much seat time as possible.
There’s going to come a point where Deegan is going to have to prove her worth on the track to continue her career in NASCAR. But the truth of the matter is that as long as Ford Performance and DGR are willing to allow Deegan to run through what has, for the most part, been a string of bad luck this season so she can start stringing together complete races, she will remain a staple in the series.
Either way, it’s not time to hit the panic button on her NASCAR career… yet.
