Following her debut season in the NASCAR Truck Series, Hailie Deegan is excited for to 2022 campaign while also looking to improving on her rookie performance.
The 20-year-old California native spoke about her upcoming year and openly admitted that the main reason she has a full-time ride isn’t because of her talent.
Hailie Deegan made her first appearance in the NASCAR Truck Series in 2020 during a one-off race at Kansas Speedway where she finished 16th. In her debut full-time season with the trucks, Deegan struggled to replicate that level of success where she manage three wins in the previous two seasons with the K&N Pro Series West.
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Hailie Deegan has more than 3 million followers on TikTok, 1 million on Instagram and 400K subscribers to her YouTube channel. She can give sponsors value there so does that help alleviate pressure on-track? “Yes and no,” she says. She explains: pic.twitter.com/LTknec510Y
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) January 24, 2022
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“I probably wouldn’t be in the ride I’m in right now, being able to race in the truck series full-time, if it wasn’t for me doing social media,” she told Fox’s Bob Pockrass. “Because it is very hard to sell sponsorship on a car when you can’t guarantee TV time. It’s very hard to guarantee that. Sponsors want to see numbers. They want to see, ‘I put my logo on your car. How much product is it going to sell me?’ I am able to give them that with social media.”
“It’s different, definitely different,” Deegan told the members of the I Am Athlete-NASCAR podcast last year. “When you’re the only girl coming into the whole pit area. Obviously, I feel like I got a lot of different looks in the beginning. I feel like guy-to-guy they automatically have a respect. Guys automatically respect each other, but when a girl steps into play, it’s kind of like you’re on the laughing side. You’re the joke side of things until you earn that respect. I feel like my entire life I’ve had to earn the respect of everyone before I actually got it. When guys, they automatically respect each other.
“And I feel like the older generation; it’s hard for them to respect you. So I notice whenever I get into incidents with some of the older guys on the track, it always drags on and it’s always a lot more heightened than it is with the younger guys. Like wrecks, hard battles. It’s like they can do something to me but if I do it back it’s a problem. I’m like, ‘Well you just did the same thing.’”
Nascar is finished tbh less drivers with talent nowadays!
Martinsville 400, another stupid a$$ NASCAR decision, killing the sports one more time