Hailie Deegan Rues Missed Top-10 Opportunity in Atlanta With Fuel-Saving Tactic Going Wrong

Hailie Deegan had a good shot of getting a top-10 finish in her second Xfinity Series race in Atlanta until the team’s tactic to save fuel ruined it for her and rather resulted in a P27 finish. The Xfinity debutant recently dissected the ordeal on her YouTube channel, indicating how an unforeseen caution took away her chances of finishing high up on the grid.

Not just for Deegan, the race itself was quite an unpredictable event, as a lot of drivers ran out of fuel just moments before the checkered flag fell, making them lose a lap or two. Before the caution fell with two laps to go, there was a long stint of green flag racing, which a lot of fans did not expect given the track’s history. And by the time caution came out, cars had to go around the track a few extra times, which ended up being detrimental for most.

Green flag racing caught AM Racing and Hailie Deegan off guard

Hailie Deegan was one of the many drivers who were saving fuel during the long green flag stint. Assuming that they would give it everything, drivers had to complete the final couple of laps and achieve the highest finish possible. Unfortunately, the track had other plans. The late caution ruined it for all, and Austin Hill was left wide open to take his second win of the season in as many races.

Speaking about her bad luck in a video on her YouTube channel, Hailie Deegan expressed her disappointment but acknowledged that she had run a good race until the late caution. She said, “It was going decent, it was going fine. I did not expect it to go green for that long, if you look at every Atlanta race in the past, like there are so many cautions. We didn’t expect to have a long green flag run and then a caution comes out with 2 laps to go and all the Fords run out and then all the Chevys start running out, people are everywhere and so we didn’t make it.”

“We ended up going a lap or two down. And if it would have worked out, we would have finished top 10, so like it would have definitely paid off…the reward is bigger than the risk but we ended up on the risk side,” the 22-year-old further added.

The Xfinity Series race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway was certainly one of a kind. Not because almost half the field ran out of fuel before the race, but because there was no practice session at all. Not many people were happy about it, including Hailie Deegan’s fiance. However, the driver of the #15 will take a lot of positives from her performance, as she would have been one of the highest finishers.

Chase Cabre slams NASCAR for putting his fiancé in a perilous situation

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Veteran spotter Brett Griffin was the first to voice his opinion against the controversial decision, as he bashed NASCAR for making things a lot more difficult and dangerous for the rookies. And that is exactly what Hailie Deegan is this year: a rookie in the Xfinity Series.

Taking to X, Griffin wrote, “Imagine being a rookie in trucks Xfinity or Cup going to Atlanta for the first time. NO PRACTICE. What are we doing? No, I’m not letting it go.”

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It was not long before Chase Cabre, Deegan’s fiance and a race car driver himself, joined in on the NASCAR hate train. The outrage was quite understandable, especially from Cabre. While he was speaking from a driver’s point of view, racing without a practice session can be perilous, and the woman he is engaged to was about to be in that situation. “So gnarly. Imagine firing off into turn 1 in qualifying, holding it wide open at 170 mph and going damn I hope this sticks,” he wrote as he shared Griffin’s tweet.

Thankfully, nothing untoward unfolded throughout the weekend, but making decisions like these does not portray NASCAR in a good light. Hopefully, last weekend was the last time drivers had to go through something like that.

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