Hailie Deegan is one of the rising stars of NASCAR and currently races in the Craftsman Truck Series. As the lone full-time female racer in the top three NASCAR series, there are positives and negatives for Deegan as she not only tries to forge her own path in NASCAR, but make it a little bit easier for young girls who look up to Deegan and have NASCAR dreams.
Deegan was on Monster Energy’s Unleashed podcast discussing the pros and cons of being a woman who races in NASCAR. While that uniqueness made it easier for Deegan to obtain sponsorship, it also resulted in her having a target on her back and not being able to blend in with the group when she has a bad race.
“I would say the social media impact, because of my dad [Brian Deegan], being a girl in racing, that’s a pro,” Deegan said. “That definitely helps out with sponsors, with starting those conversations because you’re able to show proof instantly. Like, followers, analytics, boom. You’re able to pretty much show and explain yourself without having to, just kind of let the numbers talk for itself when it comes to getting sponsors. And a lot of guys struggle with getting sponsors. There’s not many guys that are coming up the ranks at all that aren’t from family money. It’s a lot of that now and it’s just, it’s different, times have obviously changed, and there’s a lot of good drivers like that aren’t racing because they don’t have sponsors and stuff. So when it comes to being a girl in racing, I feel like that does help out with the sponsor side of things.
“And there is a cool factor to it. But the cons with that is that there’s other things you have to deal with. it’s going to be really hard to get people to believe in you. On the team. And it’s just, you’re gonna get more hate. And no matter what you do, good or bad, you’re gonna have a lot more bad days than you are good days… Everyone’s expectations I feel like can get so carried away, [thinking] ‘Just go out there and win.’ And then if you’re not winning, it’s almost like you can’t let yourself get too down because it’s not a 50/50 type deal. It’s not like I was the bad one and they were the good one. it’s like, ‘No, we were all off that weekend and there was one guy that hit a home run.’
“And so I think that’s the side where you’re going to get more hate because, first of all you are a girl, you have a spotlight on you. You’re gonna get more attention. People are gonna pay more attention to you. People wanna see you fail because you’re gonna fit in the mold of all the other girls that have failed. And so they’re all up waiting for you to make a mistake…whereas the other guys, they can make mistakes here and there and they’ll go unnoticed. And their big moments, their spotlight moments are when they do good. So I think there’s gonna be a lot more light on your bad days than there are on anyone else.”
Deegan wasn’t saying this in a “woe is me” way. She’s fully aware that she has some advantages due to being a woman and the daughter of a famous X-Games performer, but that comes with a unique type of pressure. Deegan never had the choice to blend in with everyone else in the garage. She’s a face of the sport whether she likes it or not, and Deegan is making the best of it by marketing herself all over social media and YouTube to gain fan support and interest from sponsors to continue her NASCAR career. While that helped Deegan get a chance in NASCAR, as a 21-year-old still developing her driving style, her mistakes are going to be seen by everyone.
It’s a dual-edged sword being the lone woman racing full-time in any of the top three NASCAR series, but Deegan is rolling with the punches to try and progress through the sport.
