Hailie Deegan is set to return to the ARCA Menards Series West for a second straight year in 2027, as part of a development plan with Bill McAnally and Bill McAnally Racing (BMR) that, with any luck, should return her to NASCAR’s National Series in the near future.
In an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90 on Friday, Bill McAnally, owner of Bill McAnally Racing and McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, confirmed that Deegan will return to her seat in the ARCA Menards Series West in 2027, chasing a championship as part of the team’s two-car program.
“We’re going to continue our ARCA West program. We’ve got Hailie Deegan signed for that,” McAnally told Alan Cavanna and Jeff Gluck. “We’re going to run for the championship out west this year, she got us a couple of wins this year. We’re working on our second car for the west, but we’ll continue that – we’ve had a long run out west, going for our 12th championship. I really feel like the way Hailie ran last year I’m excited about having her contend for the championship out West.”
That’s not all for Deegan, though.
McAnally says that, should everything go well, Deegan will also run a part-time schedule in a fourth entry for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing in the NASCAR FedEx Freight Truck Series in 2027, in preparation to potentially bring her full-time in the series in 2027.
A long-time owner in both NASCAR and ARCA, McAnally spoke very highly of Deegan and her development on Friday, as she makes her return to stock car racing, after a one-year pivot to Indy NXT in 2025. The Temecula, California-native ran in the Truck Series from 2021 to 2023, before moving to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series with AM Racing in 2024 – a stint that got cut short.
“I think Hailie, her development is going very well,” McAnally said. “She got out ahead of her skis a little bit, but she is grounded now, one-hundred percent focused, and wants to take this West Series on and win a championship and contend for a championship. She’s a proven winner, she knows how to go fast, she knows what she needs in a car – from the very first time we tested her back when she was 15 years old, she could look at us and tell us, she didn’t know how to communicate it, but she would tell us what her car needed so it would go faster, and that’s always been something that Hailie has had.”
“A lot of young drivers who take that test and work with us, if they know what they need to make that vehicle go faster and you put it to them and they do go faster, that’s what you need in a driver, and that’s hard to find,” he continued. “I always look for that when we are testing a driver for the first time, when we’re developing drivers, if they know what they need in a car to go faster, be there in the long run, and she’s always had that.”
McAnally has high hopes for Deegan, both in 2027 in ARCA West, and with her future in Trucks.
“I think Hailie will be a contender in t he Trucks, but we’re just taking our time with her now, we want to make sure she’s ready. She’s been there and hasn’t had the results that she needed to continue her NASCAR career, and when we take her this time, she’s going to be ready and prepared to go out there to run with the trucks and finish respectfully.”
