When Hailie Deegan stepped out of her racecar after 302 miles, she was elated. She set a new mark for women drivers to chase in their Xfinity Series debuts.
Deegan made her first Xfinity start driving the No. 07 Ford for SS GreenLight Racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. She prepared by totaling 12 hours on the Ford simulator, in addition to use on her personal simulator at home. Veteran David Ragan was at all of her sim sessions, analyzing the data.
When she pulled out for practice on Friday, it was the first time she’d ever driven an Xfinity car. That was a surreal moment.
“It was very different,” Deegan said of buckling into and driving an Xfinity car for the first time. “The way you see out the windshield in a truck is totally different; the angle of the windshield. I feel like I’m sitting so much higher in an Xfinity car, where in a truck you’re sitting so low. There’s a lot of different things you’ve got to get used to.”
In what seemed to be no time at all – two or three laps – Deegan was up to speed and eventually qualified 20th. Her confidence was high, as she was aiming for a top-15 finishing position in the 302-mile race, the longest race distance of her career.
“Ford is definitely behind her and wanted to evaluate where she’s at on her learning curve and we were happy to work with them,” Bobby Dotter, owner of SS GreenLight, said.
But with a tough 2022 season in the Camping World Truck Series for David Gilliland Racing, Deegan’s confidence had been shaken, team owner David Gilliland explained. He’s seen firsthand while competing against her in the ARCA Menards Series just how aggressive she can be.
“We’ve watched her grow and mature on the truck side,” Gilliland told Jayski.com last week. “The Truck Series is ultra competitive and as competitive as anything in racing right now. She’s learning a lot and has made progress. We’re excited and proud of what she’s been able to accomplish and seeing what she can do in Vegas.”
In 21 truck races this year, Deegan has a pair of top-10 finishes, including her best career finish of sixth in the series’ last outing at Talladega earlier this month. In 44 career starts, she’s yet to lead a lap and has an average finish of 19.8. She also has failed to finish six races this year.
Since Gateway in early June, Deegan has put a string of results together, including six top-15 finishes in the last 11 races. In the first 10 races of the year, she had no such finishes.
“Racing is tough and it’s easy to get beat up,” Gilliland added. “Early on, some of those accidents – you make some mistakes and get caught up in other people’s mistakes. If you rattle off a handful of those in a row, then it’s easy to start losing your self-confidence.”
The natural progression is to jump from the Truck Series to the Xfinity Series. Deegan wanted experience, not knowing what her 2023 plans are. But she’s always thought the more horsepower and less downforce a vehicle has, the more competitive she can be.
“I think the truck stuff is very dependent on equipment because a lot of the mile-and-a-halves you go to, you’re wide open in qualifying, almost wide open in the race,” Deegan added. “It becomes very dependent on equipment when the racing is like that.
“In an Xfinity car, you can crack out of it, use half throttle, jump out of the gas, get back in it, use the brake a little bit, change from front to rear brake and do your stuff to be able to make it better in the car. I feel like there’s so much potential to do more with a car like that.”
Deegan wanted her Xfinity Series debut to come on an intermediate track. In 2020, she made her Truck debut at Kansas, a similar layout to Las Vegas.
Those types of tracks are where she feels most comfortable.
“It’s something that when I was starting out in my career that I was able to excel at quicker than anything else,” she said of 1.5-mile tracks. “Mile and a halves, for some reason, I like them, I love them.”
During the race, Deegan was a mainstay in the top 20. She enjoyed a hard, yet clean battle with Jeremy Clements late in the race. And when the checkered flag flew, the No. 07 car crossed the finish line in 13th, the best for a woman in their series debut.
“It was so much fun and a great experience,” Deegan said of her debut. “The guys gave me a great car and we were able to do something with it. We were able to have a pretty fun day, pretty clean day and super happy.”
As for why Deegan had a clean race and seemed to be more competitive than she has been in the Truck Series, she alluded back to horsepower and equipment. With Ford Performance backing the No. 07 car, she was racing in a Stewart-Haas Racing car with select SHR employees.
But she still had to put a full race together.
“Sometimes, when you get different pieces to the puzzle that work together, sometimes, things work out better,” she noted. “The Truck series field is very deep for A-level equipment. That also could play a huge factor into it. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into it.”
Among her biggest lessons learned in the race were restarts. And though she hopes to be doing more Xfinity races in the near future, Las Vegas was her only race scheduled for 2022.
While Deegan hopes to be full time in the series in 2023, she’s also a realist and knows a lot of costs need to be covered.
“When you run great, it helps deals for the future,” Deegan said. “Running Xfinity costs a very big bill and you’ve got to have sponsors pay that bill. Just trying to get the funding set is definitely tough. We’re still trying to figure out what we’re doing.”
With a solid debut on Saturday, it ranks high within her personal achievements.
“I would say it’s a pretty high accomplishment,” she stated. “When you move up a level, the drivers get better, the competition gets tougher and tighter.”