Hailie Rochelle Deegan (born July 18, 2001) is an American professional stock car racing driver. She competes full-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, driving the No. 1 Ford F-150 for David Gilliland Racing. Deegan grew up racing off-road and on dirt but transitioned to competing on asphalt in 2016 to pursue a career in stock car racing. She began her career in NASCAR in 2018 at the K&N Pro Series level. She is the only woman to have won a race in the K&N Pro Series, doing so at Meridian Speedway in Idaho in 2018. She is the daughter of Brian Deegan.
Off-road racing[]
Deegan began riding dirt bikes at age seven and began racing at the age of eight, running in off-road series. She eventually competed in the Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series, where she became the first female to win a championship, doing so in the 2013 Junior 2 Karts season. Deegan became the Modified Kart Regional Champion in 2015 and became the Modified Kart National Champion the following year. She was also named 2016 Lucas Oil Off-Road Driver of the Year. She continued to race full-time in the Pro Lite division of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series in 2017.
Asphalt racing[]
In 2016, Deegan began her transition to asphalt racing by driving legends cars for Rev Racing. In 2017, she made her asphalt late model debut with a pair of CARS Late model starts, first at Tri-county motor speedway, and later at Hickory Motor Speedway.
NASCAR[]
Deegan at Sonoma in 2018
Deegan was a NASCAR Drive for Diversity member in 2016, and she received the NASCAR Diversity Young Racer award the following year. In May 2017, Deegan was one of nine drivers named to the 2017 NASCAR Next class, in which she was both the youngest member and the only female member. She also became a member of Toyota's driver development program. On January 3, 2018, Deegan was announced as a full-time driver in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West for Bill McAnally Racing (BMR), a team that had won the West Series championship each of the three previous seasons.[It was announced that she would also run a part-time schedule for McAnally in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. Deegan is the only female driver competing full-time in either of the 2018 K&N Series. Deegan made her debut in the season-opening East Series race at New Smyrna Speedway on February 11, where she started ninth but retired on lap 19 due to mechanical problems. On March 15, Deegan made her West Series debut at kern County raceway park, finishing seventh. Kevin Harvick, NASCAR's 2014 Sprint Cup Series champion (who finished fourth), battled for position with Deegan at the end of the race and was impressed with her performance, saying, "If I had to pick one person to say, 'Alright, that's the person [Kevin Harvick Incorporated] would want to represent and has the most potential,' it would probably be Hailie Deegan. She did really, really well." On May 15, Deegan was announced as a NASCAR Next class member for the second straight year as one of four drivers returning to the program from the previous season. Among those in the 2018–19 class, she is once again the only woman as well as the youngest member. She scored her first career top-five finish on May 19, finishing fourth at Orange Show Speedway. At Sonoma, Deegan qualified third and received her high school diploma during driver introductions. She went on to finish seventh in the race, earning her sixth top-ten finish in six West Series races. In her next race at Roseburg, Deegan finished second behind her BMR teammate, Derek Kraus, setting a new mark for her best career finish in the series and tying Kenzie Ruston, Nicole Behar, and Julia Landauer (all of whom are also NASCAR Next alumni) for the record for best K&N Series finish by a female driver. At the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Dirt Track, Deegan qualified on pole position for the Star Nursery 100, becoming the first woman in NASCAR history to win a pole at the K&N level. Despite a shifter issue during the first half of the race, she led 13 laps and equaled her career-best result of second in the event. On September 29, Deegan became the first woman in history to win at the K&N Pro Series level, taking the victory at the NAPA Auto Parts Idaho 208 at Meridian speedway in Idaho.Deegan passed her BMR teammate Cole Rouse on the final lap, which ended up being the only lap she led throughout the race. Her win was the first for a female in a NASCAR touring race since Shawna Robinson in the now-defunct NASCAR Dash Series. With a sixth-place finish two races later at the K&N West season finale at Kern County, Deegan closed the year by clinching Rookie of the Year honors for the series.
Deegan at Daytona in 2020
In 2020, Deegan moved up to the ARCA Menards Seriesfull-time for David Gilliland Racing. In the season opener at Daytona, Deegan qualifyed in seventh and finished the race in second. She finished seventh at the following three events at Phoenix, Talladega, and Pocono, then placing third at IRP. her first DNF occured at Kentucky, when her and Drew Dollar made contact and Deegan hit the wall. She also had a rear end issue at Iowa, also resulting in a DNF. She then strung together a streak of top tens at Kansas, where she finished ninth, the Toledo double header, where she finished eighth and sixth, Michigan where she finished sixth, the Daytona Road Course where she finished sixth, and Gateway where she ended in ninth. She got her third top five after leading 85 laps and finishing fifth at Lebanon. She followed that up with back to back sixth place finishes at Toledo and Bristol. Although she crashed out at Winchester. She finished seventh at Memphis, and led 1 lap and finished second at Springfield, and finished sixth at the season finale at Kansas. Deegan ended her 2020 ARCA campaign with 0 wins, 4 top fives, 17 top tens, 86 laps led, and 3 DNFs. she finished third in the final point standings, finishing sixty six points behind champion Bret Holmes. Although Deegan also clinched the Bounty Rookie of the Year, beating out Drew Dollar by twenty seven points.
Deegan at Texas in 2021
On October 17, Deegan made her Nascar Camping World Truck Series debut at Kansas Motorspeedway, where she finished sixteenth, although during the race, David Gilliland racing announced that Deegan would run full-time in the Truck Series, driving the No. 1 Ford F-150 in 2021. During the season opener at Daytona, she ran around the top ten for a majority of the race, although she ended getting turned and hitting the inside wall, resulting in her finishing in twenty fourth. She struggled at the Daytona Road Course and Las Vegas, finishing twenty eighth in both events. She finished twenty first at Atlanta and got her first top twenty of the season, placing nineteenth at the Bristol Dirt Race. she followed that up with a seventeenth at Richmond, and her best performance of the season, where she consistently top ten, and ended up finishing thirteenth. She finished twentieth at Darlington, fourteenth at Circuit of the Americas, and thirteenth at Charlotte. She ended finishing twenty fourth at Texas due to having a tire issue, having a top ten run going. Deegan finished twenty first at Nashville, twenty sixth at Pocono, twenty first at Knoxville, and nineteenth at Watkins Glen, after the race was called early due to weather. She then finished seventh at Gateway, marking her first top ten of the season.
Personal life[]
Deegan is the daughter of Brian Deegan, a motocross rider, off-road racer, and a former X Games athlete. She attended Rancho Christian High School in her hometown of Temecula, California.