Hailie Deegan is Getting a New Crew Chief
What’s Happening? Lost in the shuffle of the SHR news yesterday was news surrounding one of the Xfinity Series’ most…
On Monday morning, Haile Deegan and AM Racing announced that the two will be parting ways effective immediately. This comes after Joey Logano replaced Deegan at the Chicago Street race amidst a difficult season for both Deegan and AM Racing. Deegan posted the following statement to her X account, stating, in part, “Our goals no longer align.”
AM Racing’s Statement can be found below:
Coming into 2024, there was a lot of optimism surrounding Hailie Deegan and AM Racing. While Deegan had struggled in the Truck Series the past three seasons, a solid Xfinity Series run at Las Vegas in 2022, where she finished 12th, gave a small glimmer of hope. Despite admitting that Deegan wasn’t performing to the level they wanted, Ford decided to give Deegan a shot up in the Xfinity Series.
This shot came with AM Racing, a new team to the Xfinity Series. In its first year in the series with Brett Moffitt driving, AM Racing impressed the NASCAR world. Moffitt finished 15th in the driver’s standings, just a few spots short of qualifying for the Playoffs. While not Championship-caliber yet, AM Racing was seen as an up-and-coming race team that could build around Deegan.
The season started up-and-down. After catching up in a crash at Daytona and running out of fuel at Atlanta, Deegan had a solid top-15 finish at Las Vegas. Unfortunately, things went back down from there, as she crashed out again at Phoenix while stuck in the back all day.
Deegan was as inconsistent as they come in the next eight races following Phoenix. She recorded three top-20s (Martinsville, Talladega, and Charlotte) while finishing outside of the top-30 three times (Richmond, Dover, and Darlington). She sat 26th in points, with Blaine Perkins being the only full-time driver lower in the standings.
This predicated a crew chief change, as Matt Lucas, a two-time Xfinity Series race-winning crew chief, came in to replace Joe Williams. The change did not pay off.
What’s Happening? Lost in the shuffle of the SHR news yesterday was news surrounding one of the Xfinity Series’ most…
When Lucas was brought in, Deegan’s performance got even worse. In the five races with Lucas atop the pit box, Deegan never finished better than 25th and never qualified better than 30th. Deegan dropped to 27th in the standings, the lowest of all full-time drivers.
AM Racing had looked at every possible avenue they could, and they now turned to the driver to see what was going wrong. Joey Logano replaced Deegan for the Chicago Street Race. Logano qualified 15th and finished eighth, both season bests for the team.
Rumors began to swirl during the week as AM Racing did not commit to Deegan as their driver beyond Chicago. Fans noted that AM Racing was absent from Deegan’s social media bio, but we could not confirm if it had been there previously.
It all culminated in this day, as Deegan was replaced at AM Racing. Just a few short years ago, she was a multi-time winner in the ARCA Menards Series West and someone people felt had a bright future in the sport. Now, her future stands uncertain.
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