Hailie Deegan says she is overcoming last year’s lack of confidence

Hailie Deegan recently spoke about the challenges she faced in the first year of her NASCAR Truck Series career. She claimed she was aware that moving up into a NASCAR series would be difficult for her initially. The 20-year-old admitted that she didn’t perform as she expected, driving for the David Gilliland Racing team.

Speaking to Racer.com about last year’s lack of confidence, Deegan said:

“I’ve heard it from so many people around me that I’ve got to be more confident, I’ve got to be mentally stronger, more confident in myself, that’s what I’ve worked on a lot this offseason and really broke down everything because you can go, ‘Oh, I’m going to be more confident’, but that doesn’t mean anything. You have to figure out how you’re going to do that. I figured out what I needed to work on to game-plan goals and how to accomplish them.”

Deegan finished her rookie year 17th in championship standings with just one top-10 finish. Describing her first-year stint, she said:

“I needed last year to learn to be good this year, there were so many components (to truck racing) that I was at the bad end of that, and I had to kind of push through it as best I could and absorb as much information as I could to be able to apply it this year.”

Hailie Deegan’s poor performance at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Hailie Deegan’s 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season didn’t start well, going through a rough tenure so far. Deegan logged her 25th start in the Truck Series in Friday night’s Victoria’s Voice Foundation 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Like her previous outing, Deegan once again had a disappointing race, finishing 33rd in the 36-truck field. Meanwhile, Chandler Smith took the lead with two laps remaining and held off Zane Smith and Kyle Busch to win the race.

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The Camping World Truck Series action continues on to Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Fr8Auctions 200. Coverage of the race will take place on FS1 and MRN on March 19 at 2:30 pm ET.