When Hailie Deegan made her Truck Series debut in 2020, the racing world was overflowing with prophecies about how she was going to be the next Danica Patrick. She was one in a limited field of women in NASCAR and had no foes but history to fight against. Disappointingly over these last three years, we saw how she stumbled to live up to those expectations. The question that looms now is, moving to the Xfinity Series, can she finally fulfill her potential?
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When Danica Patrick made her debut in the Nationwide Series in 2010 with JR Motorsports, she was already 27 and had no experience racing in the top tiers of NASCAR. Coming from open-wheel racing, she had the disadvantage of unknownness against her. Despite that, she did not take long to set into the demands of the game.
She ended her 13-race debut year with an average finish of 28 and followed that up with an average of 17.4 in 2011. Her 4th place finish in the Las Vegas Motorspeedway that season was a record for women in NASCAR. Over the 5 years that she spent in the Nationwide Series, she brought in 1 top-5 and 7 top-10 finishes.
February 17, 2013: Danica Patrick won the pole for the Daytona 500 with a speed of 196.43 mph. That remains the fastest single-car Daytona 500 pole speed in the last 30 years pic.twitter.com/2dv1ZFX9yU
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) February 17, 2023
Coming to Deegan, that could certainly be a tall wall to climb. She has continually failed to record what can be called good performances and has more doubters than fans in her stands right now. But one small glimmer of light is the 13th place finish that she scored at Las Vegas in 2012 during her Xfinity debut with SS Greenlight Racing. The result reverberated a deep-lying knack for racing in cars more so than in trucks.
13 years after Patrick made her first Xfinity start in the Daytona 300 with JRM, Deegan will be doing the same with AM Racing. Whether the recurrence of history will serve to be kind to Deegan remains to be seen.
Hailie Deegan’s new crew chief at AM Racing sets high ambitions for her
AM Racing announced last month that Joe Williams, a veteran in the Xfinity scene, will serve as the crew chief for Deegan’s #15 team in 2024. He was previously the chief for Brett Moffitt and guided the driver to 9 top-10 finishes and 1 top-5. Having also worked with drivers like Cole Custer and Chase Briscoe, Williams will be a strong arm on Deegan’s side.
He said about his ambitions, “With Hailie behind the wheel, it presents us an opportunity to continue showcasing our efforts but also put her in a position to not only contend for top-10 finishes but hopefully challenge for a win throughout the year too.”
Should he be able to realize his words and give Hailie Deegan a few top-10 finishes and hopefully a win, the young driver would have had a far better debut year than Danica Patrick did.
