NASCAR Cup Series

Will this be Hailie Deegan's breakout year?

Published Feb. 27, 2024 12:54 p.m. ET

When Hailie Deegan landed an Xfinity Series ride for 2024, there was one moment that many could point to that would show optimism for her as a series rookie.

That moment was her 13th-place finish in the October 2022 race at Las Vegas.

For some drivers, the Xfinity cars just tend to suit them better than trucks, and the 22-year-old Deegan would hope that’s the case for her. After the season opened with two drafting tracks and Deegan getting collected in a crash at Daytona and then running out of gas late at Atlanta, Deegan now at least enters a little more familiar territory this weekend.

With the Xfinity Series schedule being 33 races (trucks were only 23), Deegan looks at this year as a year to build with AM Racing, which is competing in the Xfinity Series for the second season (Brett Moffitt was 15th in points last year) after several years of full-time truck racing. The organization also competes full time in the ARCA Series with Christian Rose.

"What I'm looking forward to the most going to the Xfinity Series is being just a part of a team that is newer and wants to prove themselves," Deegan said prior to the start of the season. "That's going to be really cool.

"I think it's going to be a good duo with the both of us because I'm going to the Xfinity Series trying to prove myself. Obviously, I'm excited for a lot more races compared to the truck series schedule. So there's a lot of things to be excited for."

Deegan obviously wants to run better than she did in trucks, where she averaged a finish of 21.3 over three seasons. She had five top-10s in 69 starts. Deegan is the only full-time female driver at the NASCAR national series level and this deal materialized over the summer last year before being announced in October.

"I wouldn't say [this is a] reset but just like an unexpected opportunity that kind of fell into my lap midway through last season," said Deegan, the daughter of action motorsports star Brian Deegan.

Hailie Deegan explains why she thinks AM Racing is a good fit for her

With little practice and rookies getting only one day of testing during the season, Deegan knows she will have to learn quickly. The key could come during the second half of the year when the series goes to tracks a second time.

"The biggest challenge is getting used to a new car," Deegan said. "There are a lot of things different. ... There’s just different things you’ve got to learn compared to the truck — how they handle differently, how they respond to your reactions differently, how changes affect them.

"I feel like I'm trying to rebuild my notebook from the ground up."

So what would be a good season?

"A good season I think is being consistently top-15," Deegan said. "’[And then] to top-10. I'd say my big goal is to make the playoffs. ... Everyone here’s goal is going to win races, but hopefully we won't be in the position where we have to win to make the playoffs."

She said that prior to the start of the season and will now need finishes like the one she had at Las Vegas in 2022 to climb her way up in the points as she sits 34th after the first two events.

At least she can go into Vegas knowing she has performed at a high level in an Xfinity car.

Ford Performance global director Mark Rushbrook said in November that "it has been an interesting road" for Deegan and her development as a driver. This move to Xfinity is to see if these cars suit her style and hopes driving for AM Racing will allow her to show her capabilities.

"We’ve seen certainly some glimmers, some opportunity, but not the sustained performance, candidly, that we’d like to see. … The race she did in Xfinity car [in 2022] at Las Vegas, she did really well," Rushbrook said.

"This is now an opportunity with her advancing to Xfinity and a new team to have a different car, have different people around her. Driver styles suit different types of cars and different racing."

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.