Hailie Deegan will be back in a race car next season as a part of the IndyCar system. The former NASCAR Xfinity Series driver will pilot the No. 38 HMD Motorsports car in the Indy NXT Series. In NASCAR terms, the Indy NXT Series is similar to the Xfinity Series and is a feeder program to the top-tier competition.
Advertisement
If Deegan does well there, she can potentially become a full-time IndyCar Series driver in 2026. Motorsports legend Mario Andretti welcomed her to the new avenue with a post on X. His warm welcome will mean a lot to the 23-year-old who has received a lot of criticism during and after her time in NASCAR. In the IndyCar NXT Series, she will have a chance to race clean and compete for wins.
Welcome to heaven Hailie. You’ll love it !!! https://t.co/qSuQk17FzD
— Mario Andretti (@MarioAndretti) October 15, 2024
HMD Motorsports is a successful team and has won the Indy NXT championship twice. It has also produced two championship-winning drivers, Christian Rasmussen and Linus Lundqvist. Deegan will be hoping to be an addition to this list but it will take her some time to adjust to this new form of racing.
She could become the second female driver to win in the IndyCar Series if she does well at this level and gets called up to the first division. She will be driving with and against several international drivers, which is bound to be a great learning experience. The IndyCar Series is what helped Danica Patrick rise to fame and become a trailblazer for women in American Motorsports.
Deegan could follow on those lines. There is no doubt that she has enough talent to succeed. Realizing that potential will be the hard part but she appears ready for the challenge.
Kenny Wallace blames “jealous men” for Deegan’s NASCAR exit
Why was Deegan not successful in NASCAR? Veteran racer Kenny Wallace recently expressed a controversial take on the matter. Wallace has been a fan of Deegan for quite some time and he believes that NASCAR is simply not ready for a female race car driver. This view could draw him a lot of criticism.
“They can’t run into her like they did in NASCAR,” he said on YouTube. “There are so many jealous men that race in NASCAR that they could take their vehicle and use it like a weapon and they would just run into her, spin her out, and wreck her. It would happen all the time, we watched it. So she says to hell with this NASCAR, they’re not ready for a woman.”
In his defense, the negative comments that flowed across social media after the announcement of her new progression only backed his opinion. Unlike with her affiliations in NASCAR, Deegan is joining a team capable of winning championships in the Indy NXT Series. She might not be extremely successful in her debut season but it will be interesting to see how she does in open-wheel racing.
