Hailie Deegan looking forward to season of growth, opportunity
By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
Hailie Deegan didn’t have the rookie season in trucks that she wanted in 2021. There’s no doubt about that.
With just one top-10, an average finish of 20.9 and a final ranking of 17th in the standings, the 20-year-old had one of those seasons that many would term a "learning experience" for a young driver.
In one sense, it wasn't surprising. She had about four years of stock-car racing experience, and without practice at most venues, she was learning about the truck and the track during the race itself.
In another sense, Deegan had shown potential for better results. She had 11 top-10s and two wins in the NASCAR West Series in 2019 and four top-5s and 17 top-10s on her way to finishing third in the ARCA standings in 2020.
Deegan entered the trucks with the backing of Ford Motor Company, and the David Gilliland Racing team had been competing in the series the past few years.
But 2021 wasn’t the best for the organization. Deegan's teammate, Tanner Gray, had two top-10s and finished 18th in the standings. At the same time, Ryan Preece, a Cup driver, did win a race, showing that the team had equipment capable of running up front.
Some might view 2022 as the critical, make-or-break season in Deegan’s development. But her ability to create a brand on social media should keep her in the driver seat and allow her to develop.
The daughter of extreme sports athlete Brian Deegan, Hailie Deegan has more than 3.1 million followers on TikTok, 1.1 million followers on Instagram, 692,000 followers on Facebook and 401,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel.
It’s no wonder that a start-up racing series such as the Superstar Racing Experience asked her to compete in a couple of events last year, despite her not yet having had the success she wants in NASCAR. Ford has put her in a sports car for a race later this week at Daytona to help her gain experience — and knowing that she has plenty of fans who will have interest.
"Something that I’ve really focused on is social media [and] being able to market myself," Deegan told FOX Sports. "That came very natural because of the household that I grew up in, with my father really being very good at that.
"That was something that was very normal to me. I loved social media. I love making content and showing people my journey and my life."
If Deegan isn’t bringing her sponsors value on the race track on a day when she doesn’t run up near the front, she at least can offer them value on other platforms.
"I probably wouldn’t be in the ride I’m in right now, being able to race in the truck series full-time, if it wasn’t for me doing social media," she said. "Because it is very hard to sell sponsorship on a car when you can’t guarantee TV time. It’s very hard to guarantee that.
"Sponsors want to see numbers. They want to see, ‘I put my logo on your car. How much product is it going to sell me?’ I am able to give them that with social media."
Young drivers often feel they don’t have much time to produce results before they are viewed as having met their competitive ceiling. They also worry that if they take too long to develop, potential sponsors wanting to market to young adults might eventually view them as too old.
With her social media following, though, Deegan should have a little less pressure on the track because she should have confidence that her sponsors will give her time to improve her performance.
"I feel like I have a lot of pressure on me because of the fan base I do have," Deegan said. "It is very hard when you have your entire following group from every social media platform. Every social media platform has its own demographic, so I feel like you always have pressure on you."
Does Deegan actually think her fan base would leave her if she doesn’t win? After all, she was voted the truck series Most Popular Driver last season.
"If they stuck with me through last year, they’re definitely staying around for a long time," she said. "Last year was a struggle just because of a lack of experience I had in a truck.
"They got to see me develop firsthand, whether it was on my YouTube channel [or] the racing vlogs we did every single race. We didn’t miss one."
Of course, Deegan has times when she wishes she could make mistakes without the spotlight. But she knows that you can’t have one without the other, so she will deal with seeing the comments people make about her progress.
"There’s times where I wish I could just do my thing and develop and not have to worry about what people are going to say or have to go on Twitter to see [when] I wonder if that wreck got on there," Deegan said.
"It’s also kind of nice because when you do get in a wreck, it’s always there, so you can really see it all the time. Honestly, I can’t push that away because that’s who I am, and that’s who I made myself. That just comes with it."
Deegan believes she can show improvement on the track this season. She had plenty of races last year in which she felt she could have finished better.
"Mainly just wrapping up those finishes. I feel like we’ve had so many good runs, whether it is a mistake on my part, whether it’s me making a bad restart or a pit crew error," she said.
Deegan hopes to run some Xfinity races at some point in 2022, and if she shows some progress in trucks, it wouldn’t be a big leap to see her in an Xfinity car full-time in 2023.
But she won’t look at this as the year that decides whether she will have a successful stock car career.
"It’s going to take time for me to get to where I want to be," she said. "This season, I want to [be] ... just going out there and constantly being better — me as a driver, me as a person, be my best self.
"That comes with time. I don’t think next season is a ‘I’ve got to do this, or I’m not going to be racing anymore.’ I think I’ve made a core relationship with my sponsors. This is my plan. This is my trajectory of what I’m trying to accomplish."
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Thinking out loud
NASCAR has had a policy the past few years that posthumous inductees into the NASCAR Hall of Fame are not provided time for an induction speech by a representative. The rationale was that with five inductees and trying to keep the program moving, it would give more time for living inductees to speak.
With the move to three inductees, NASCAR still planned to follow that for the induction ceremony Friday. But Julie Stefanik, widow of Mike Stefanik, was unaware of the policy until a couple of weeks before the event and had already written a speech.
So she posted the speech on social media, and the response from both fans and industry members — including inductee Dale Earnhardt Jr. — spurred NASCAR to include Stefanik’s speech in the program.
This wasn’t like some of the early Hall of Fame inductions, at which a relative of the inductee — unknown to the industry and fans — would speak and leave people wondering about the connection. It made sense for Julie Stefanik to speak. She was her husband’s spotter. She is well-known in the racing community. Fans and those in the industry wanted to hear what she had to say.
With three inductees, there should be enough time for a posthumous inductee's family member to speak. If there is someone whose words will resonate with the NASCAR fan base, that person should get those 10 minutes in the spotlight to honor a loved one.
Social spotlight
Stat of the day
Six drivers who have driven for JR Motorsports also have won Cup titles: Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick.
They said it
"Nothing that racing has given me will ever top this night. ... To join Dad in the Hall of Fame is probably as good as it is ever going to get." — Dale Earnhardt Jr. at his Hall of Fame induction
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!
