Over two decades ago, it was a young Tony Stewart who moved from Indy Car to NASCAR. From that moment, there was no looking back, as a NASCAR star began a lengthy career filled with trophies. While Stewart retired, one NASCAR driver looks to replicate his success, only this time, Hailie Deegan wants to find success by moving from NASCAR to Indy NXT.

Ahead of her 2025 Indy NXT debut, in an interview, she opened up to former NASCAR veteran, Kenny Wallace. The young upcoming star detailed what were the key differences between handling stock car machines and open wheelers and the reasons for her leaving the former for the latter.

Indy NXT is not ‘too warm’ for Hailie Deegan

Hailie Deegan has driven just about every type of performance automobile in existence. Known for her aggressive driving style, she kicked off in off-road racing, tearing up the dirt in trucks, which makes sense given the background of her motocross dad, Brian Deegan. But she didn’t stop there. Hailie transitioned to asphalt, joining NASCAR’s K&N Pro Series West where she became the first female to ever win races.

She’s also burned rubber in the ARCA Menards Series and the NASCAR Truck Series, becoming one of the few women to compete at that level, securing several top-10 finishes at iconic venues like Talladega, Texas, and Ohio. Whether it’s motorcycles, dirt, pavement, or trucks, Deegan’s shown she can handle just about anything with wheels! So when she speaks on the distinctions between motorsport disciplines, you listen.

After a difficult 2024 stint in the Xfinity series with the AM Racing squad, the Californian will try her hand at open-wheel racing as she joins the Indy NXT series in the #38 of HMD Motorsports. Following a successful first test, Kenny Wallace asked the popular 23-year-old driver about the most immediate difference she found after making the switch out of stock racing. Deegan replied, “I think the biggest difference for me, just difference-wise, not necessarily that I liked it or disliked it, was the fact that you don’t have a windshield”.

Comparing the open-wheel cockpit to her stock car counterpart she said, “When you when you’re in a stock car everything is so still. When you’re on super speedways I swear there could be the tiniest speck [of something] in the air and it falls right down because there’s no air movement in the car and I think that was a big change for me. With open-wheel stuff there’s so much wind on you that you never get [too] warm, I guess that’s the nice part!”

She did, however, note that the constant blasts of channeled air to her dome required some getting used to. She even humorously recalled her struggles with her (relatively loose) NASCAR helmet during a Formula 3 test, which left her helmet rising up and the chin strap choking her. “I was like I ain’t gonna get a new helmet to test this car, it’s just a test and went out there. Like my helmet’s rising up on the straightaways and like the little chin strap is like strangling me and I’m like you know what I probably need that like IndyCar-specific helmet now.”

While these were the biggest differences she found, her driving motivation to switch disciplines was nothing near as superficial as the need to just feel the wind in her hair.

A less grueling schedule and simple math

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With only 14 races per year comprising the IndyNXT calendar compared to the exhausting 33 of the Xfinity Series, Deegan candidly spoke about her need for practice time to grow and mature as a young racing driver. Time, she felt, IndyNXT would offer her as opposed to continuing to languish around 30th with the #15 AM Racing machine without scope for improvement. While she gracefully declined to comment much further on her former employer’s continued struggles, even after she departed from the team, she acknowledged the reality of her learning curve.

“I’m a slow learner” she admitted, “but I can figure it out. I’ve never been the one to go out there [immediately] put in a quick time and jump it in. I like building up to stuff.” Hailie went on to further explain that her decision was also influenced by simple math, “My first year of trucks I got no practice, my second year of trucks we got 20 minutes. That’s nuts! There’s some tracks that like Atlanta you get no practice. Superspeedways? No practice. And then there’s like 55 minutes on road courses. I will have more seat time, off just the test days in the Indy NXT series than I did in practice my whole truck [racing] career.” 

With barely any practice time, at only 23 years of age, Hailie has been able to notch up some pretty impressive results so far. Now, with more focused data and a lot more seat time, she’ll be hoping to make more history by conquering yet another discipline of motorsport.