Hailie Deegan doesn’t yet have her plans ironed out for 2027, but she knows what she’d like to do.
Last Friday, in a media availability at Phoenix Raceway, Deegan, when asked about her future and the direction that she would like her career to go, said that she would love to return to the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series, but hasn’t been able to lock down a seat, as of yet.
“Next year, I would love to go Truck [Series] racing again,” Deegan said. “So, [we’re] working on everything we possibly can to move forward and keep digging at it. Obviously, it’s a lot, you have to get a lot of sponsor commitments and everything to end up there. Working on stuff, but if I had my dream scenario, and I guess unlimited budget, that’s where I would like to go.”
After what has been a tumultuous couple of years, bouncing between series and different disciplines, Deegan finds herself competing once again in the ARCA Menards Series West, where she is currently piloting the No. 16 Chevrolet SS for Bill McAnally Racing.
Deegan spent three seasons competing full-time in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series, piloting the No. 1 Ford F-150 for David Gilliland Racing (DGR) in 2021 and 2022, before jumping over to ThorSport Racing’s No. 13 Ford F-150 in 2023. In 69 career starts, Deegan collected five top-10s.
In 2024, Deegan made the jump up to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (or what was known as the NASCAR Xfinity Series, at the time) for AM Racing, piloting the No. 15 Ford Mustang for the first 17 events of the season and picking up a best finish of 12th-place at Talladega Superspeedway, and a pair of top-15 results, before being released from the team after Nashville.
The Temecula, California-native then made another leap, jumping out of stock car racing completely and moving to open-wheel competition in Indy NXT, competing full-time in the series for HMD Motorsports. It was a major struggle adjusting to the series, though, and Deegan finished 14th in point standings with a best finish of 11th at Laguna Seca.
Now, Deegan is back in ARCA West and has seemingly found her groove, with one victory, three top-five finishes, and seven top-10s in 11 races. The 25-year-old driver was on a strong run of three consecutive top-three results before problems at Phoenix.
There’s no guarantee, though, that even if Deegan wants to move back to the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series that she’ll be able to lock that down. Obviously, she has a direct connection to a Truck Series team in McAnally-Hilgemann Racing but would need the funding to make that work.
Right now, she still doesn’t know if that’s going to happen.
“I wish I could give you guys a for-sure answer,” Deegan added. “I don’t even know for sure for myself, so we’re still working on stuff, but obviously dream scenario would be to go Truck racing. So, if everything works out and everything keeps building and growing that would be great to end up there.”
“We still got quite a few months left in the year to be able to figure stuff out and get commitments with sponsors, that’s the hard part in the racing world is being able to get those sponsor commitments early so you can tell everyone what you’re doing.”
