Why NASCAR format in COVID-era is stalling Hailie Deegan’s path out of ARCA to Trucks
NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan plopped down on her bed after a test run at a North Carolina short-track Wednesday. From there, Deegan — blonde ponytail splayed behind her — described the grind of trying to get the same amount of track time in the COVID-19 era.
“I wouldn’t call it a lost year, but I haven’t got everything out of it that I was planning on,” Deegan said.
At 19, Deegan, daughter of freestyle motocross driver Brian Deegan, is already a recognizable face in the sport. As the first female to win a race in what is now called the ARCA Menards Series West, a developmental series, she has gained a substantial fan following and is considered a budding prospect to reach NASCAR’s upper-levels.
Last year, Deegan joined Ford Performance’s driver development program, providing her with structural support as she competes for DGR-Crosley in the full slate of ARCA races and looks to eventually make the jump to NASCAR’s national level series, starting with Trucks.
But the pandemic is stunting that goal.
Specifically, Deegan said, the lack of practice and traditional pit stops — a result of the format NASCAR has adopted to reduce costs and contact during the pandemic — has hurt her years-long plan to “make it” in stock-car racing.
“It just makes it really difficult, especially for a driver like me that doesn’t have as much experience as I want to have and needs more experience and you’re not getting that,” Deegan said. “It favors the drivers who have been there forever.”
“ ... But the drivers up-and-coming, they’re trying to make it in the sport. Get seat time. Get experience. Because these races, they still cost the same for sponsors to pay for as they would if we got practice and qualifying and all that stuff, so it’s like I get cut short.”
It’s a concern other members of the industry have voiced as NASCAR implemented one-day shows, in which teams unload their cars then hit the track for the main event shortly after for its three national series — Cup, Xfinity and Trucks.
“With the limited access to testing and the limiting practice, there are long-term consequences that have to be considered in regards to younger drivers,” NBC Sports NASCAR analyst and former Cup driver Jeff Burton said in July. “Because every time you go on the track, that’s an experience. Every time you tell your team, ‘Hey, my car is doing this’ and they make this change, that’s an experience.”
“We don’t need two-and-a-half, three hours of practice on a weekend,” Burton said. “But we do need enough practice so that young drivers, young crew chiefs, developing teams can do things to move the ball and make things better for themselves.”
While the upper levels are operating without practice, the ARCA Series, in which Deegan competes, is still holding practice at most tracks, but sessions have been limited to roughly half an hour in which drivers fit in only a few laps to ensure that their equipment doesn’t have any mechanical issues. Normally, practice sessions last an hour and a half.
“I think (what) we’ve been lacking a lot in the ARCA Series (is) good racing,” Deegan said. “And I think the last time we saw good racing start back up was at Gateway (WWT Raceway).”
Deegan said that unlike the Dutch Boy 150 event at Gateway two weeks ago, the field is typically so spread out in ARCA races that battles don’t occur and the racing gets “boring.” She said she’s had to use other “budget-friendly” resources, including running supplementary programs and sessions at dirt tracks, off-road courses and on the simulator rig, to make up for lost time behind the wheel.
“I’ve been doing a lot more dirt racing, dirt circle track racing, sim time, a lot more studying footage and focusing on the off-track stuff to get me ready for the on-track stuff since we have such a lack of practice,” Deegan said.
While she said that the pandemic doesn’t necessarily put her “plan” back a year, Deegan mentioned that the financial impact of COVID-19 prevented her from entering a handful of Trucks races she had targeted at the beginning of the season. She said it’s still uncertain how and whether she will enter the Trucks Series next season.
“I know people who have trucks but I’m struggling to find people that want to pay for them,” Deegan quipped.
But having equipment only does so much without a driver’s developed capabilities to run it.
“The two biggest things that stick out the most in my mind are not having pit stops, traditional pit stops, and not having practice,” Deegan said. “(Those are) two things that I really needed and I’m gonna need before I go to Trucks.”
“At the end of the day, ARCA is a development series,” Deegan added. “It’s not the Cup Series. It’s a development series where it’s a stepping stone for drivers to move up to higher levels.”
As the industry rallies around one-day shows and NASCAR considers limiting practice in future schedules at the Cup level, in the lower racing divisions, practice is the point.
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 10:50 AM.
