HAILIE DEEGAN Scores Season-Best 10th in Qualifying at Gateway After Move

June 15, 2025

by Geetansh Pasricha // from www.sportskeeda.com

• HAILIE DEEGAN made a gutsy career pivot from NASCAR Xfinity to Indy NXT after parting ways with AM Racing mid-season, jumping headfirst into open-wheel competition where she’s learning to rewire her racing instincts. The 23-year-old is discovering that everything she knew about braking points and corner entry from stock cars goes out the window with these high-downforce machines.
• Her breakthrough moment came at Gateway where she qualified 10th – her best grid position of the season with HMD Motorsports. DEEGAN revealed the mental gymnastics required to adapt, explaining how she has to “trick her mind” into staying flat-out where she’d normally lift, going against every racing instinct she’s developed over years in NASCAR machinery.
• While she started the season seconds off pole and finished 14th at St. Pete (ironically her best race result so far), the gap to the front-runners is steadily shrinking. She’s still hunting for that elusive first top-10 finish, but this qualifying performance at one of the trickiest tracks on the schedule shows she’s finding her footing in a series where most drivers have been grinding open-wheel ladders since they were teenagers.

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