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Deegan’s surprise Indy NXT move comes after she recently returned to her off-road roots in Nitrocross. Qnigan\/Nitrocross<\/p>\nHailie Deegan\u2019s next turn in motor racing will take place in the NTT IndyCar Series\u2019 top development category with HMD Motorsports, where the young veteran of off-road and stock car racing will tackle a full season of Indy NXT.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old daughter of action sports legend Brian Deegan will make her open-wheel debut later this week on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course during the annual Chris Griffis Test.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI am excited about the opportunity and look forward to working with a proven program in HMD Motorsports,\u201d Deegan said. \u201cI have much to learn, but I am ready to go. The team brings a wealth of knowledge for me to pull from, and I look forward to soaking up as much of that as possible before my race debut next March in St. Petersburg.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deegan joins championship front-runner Caio Collet, HMD newcomer Bryce Aron, Josh Pierson, and Tommy Smith among the confirmed HMD drivers for 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cHailie, and especially the Deegan name, are huge in motorsports, and we welcome them to the HMD Motorsports family,\u201d said team president Mike Maurini. \u201cHailie has already been out to the shop and is taking the move to open-wheel racing seriously. She is looking for a place in the Indianapolis area to be emersed with the team and is already working with her engineer. We want to make sure she and all the other HMD Motorsports drivers are as ready as possible for every on-track session.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deegan’s surprise Indy NXT move comes after she recently returned to her off-road roots in Nitrocross. Qnigan\/Nitrocross<\/p>\n
Deegan’s move to open-wheel racing comes after she recently appeared in the Side-by-Side class of Nitrocross at Utah Motorsports Campus, where she hinted at today’s announcement, saying, \u201cWe\u2019re working on stuff, just can\u2019t say a whole lot right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Utah she competed against her father’s rival Travis Pastrana, as well as Kira and Mika Block, children of the late Ken Block.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely cool,\u201d Deegan told RACER of her brief return to off-road racing. \u201cThe Block kids are racing and they\u2019re all great kids. We\u2019re all here having fun, having a blast, and it\u2019s a great time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been really cool because I like racing UTVs. Can-Ams are great fun to drive, I drive them all the time at my house, so I haven\u2019t really got away from dirt, but I\u2019d say (I have) the racing side, so it was good to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deegan finished the first day of racing in Utah in fourth, but didn’t advance to the eight-car final on the second day, highlighting the highly-competitive nature of the SxS class which as well as the Blocks and Pastrana also includes the likes of rising off-road talents Kainan Baker, Gray Leadbetter, Cash LeCroy, and Mia Chapman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cream always rises to the top. There\u2019s always a fast couple of guys and I think it\u2019s like that in all series,\u201d Deegan said. \u201cThere\u2019s always so many different series that I\u2019ve raced and there\u2019s always the really fast guys.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one\u2019s pretty competitive too, especially since everyone\u2019s been racing all year and I haven\u2019t been here at all, so everyone\u2019s got it all figured out.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Deegan’s next move is now set, a future move to Nitrocross\u2019 premier Group E class, where her father raced four times last season, is almost definitely not on the cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think so, I\u2019m not into electric stuff so I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d want to do that,\u201d she said of the potential of racing in Nitrocross\u2019 main game. \u201cPlus I\u2019ve never been into rallycross cars, that was always my Dad\u2019s thing. I\u2019ve never taken an interest in it, it\u2019s just not my forte.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hailie Deegan\u2019s next turn in motor racing will take place in the NTT IndyCar Series\u2019 top development category with HMD Motorsports, where the young veteran of off-road and stock car racing will tackle a full season of Indy NXT. The 23-year-old daughter of action sports legend Brian Deegan will make her open-wheel debut later this …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","has-thumb","has-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.timesamerica.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}