NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competitors set their sights on the rolling hills of Northern California, as the series takes on its second road course event of the season at Sonoma Raceway on Saturday.
Drivers will have to recalibrate their focus for the DoorDash 250, as they get back to grinding through gears and attempt to navigate around the 1.99-mile, 11-turn road course.
The series hasn’t raced at Sonoma since 1998, however, Hailie Deegan enters the weekend with some experience at the course, scoring a pole and finishing eighth in the track’s K&N Pro Series West race in 2019.
Though a K&N car may not look like her current Ford F-150, the 20-year-old is hoping some of her previous notes will transfer.
“I’m hoping it compares pretty good because I do have a lot of notes from back then of me asking other drivers what to do, so I have their notes too, which is pretty nice,” Deegan said. “I’ve had the same laptop for six years, so that’s a plus. I think that going back to Sonoma in the truck is going to be a little bit different. Obviously, the racing is probably going to be a lot harder. This is a lot deeper field of good competition, but I think, at least for me, it gives me an idea of what to do. It gives me a base to go off of. Obviously, you could go in a couple different directions with stuff, but I feel like I have a good, solid base from being there in the K&N race.”
A solid base heading into the weekend may be the spark that turns Deegan’s season around.
The driver of the No. 1 David Gilliland Racing Ford ranks 24th in the driver standings.
Last week’s race at World Wide Technolgy Raceway at Gatway, may have been a sign of things to come. Deegan started 26th and raced in the top 10 before finishing 15th.
As she continues her second full season in the Truck Series, Deegan has noticed a shift in her mentality compared to last year.
“I think last year I was lacking a little confidence in myself,” Deegan said, “just like when you go from running top three, top five every single week in K&N, ARCA, that kind of stuff – able to hop in dirt cars and do really good – and then all of a sudden you get in the Truck Series and you’re like, ‘I’m getting in wrecks every single weekend. Is my reaction time terrible? What’s going on?’ I live a little bit sometimes too much in the moment and I feel like it kind of hurts me because if there’s a problem right now, I want to fix it right now.
“That’s not always the case when it comes to racing stock cars,” Deegan continued. “It doesn’t always work out like that, so I’ve kind of had to get used to that and kind of accept what I was working with and making the best of it, and trying to fix little things as we go and not try to fix everything right then in the moment. It’s tough. I mean, it’s very, very tough, but I think we’re just trying to do the best we can right now and just kind of get as many good finishes as we can, staying out of all the wrecks happening because I swear every single race in the Truck Series only half the field finishes.”
As Deegan continues to search for consistency and solid finishes in the Truck Series, she may earn a boost from competing in Tony Stewart’s Superstar Racing Experience this summer.
Deegan is slated to return to the series for two races, at Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway and Missouri’s Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55.
Last year, Deegan found success going door-to-door against some of the greats in motorsports, earning a second-place finish at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway, and a fourth-place effort at Slinger (Wis.) Speedway.
“It was a great experience. I never would have thought I would be sitting around at an autograph session with Bill Elliott,” Deegan said. “I was right next to him talking to him the whole time, and it’s crazy when you bring this older generation of racers – some are retired and some still race, but you bring them together.
“For me, this is my best opportunity to get the most information possible as a driver and kind of learn the ropes of everything from people who have, first of all, made it to that level, been at that level for a long time, and are out of it now because they’ve been so successful. I think there’s a lot of good advice and good tips you can learn from those type of guys and I’m excited to go back. That was a great experience. I don’t think I could complain about one thing in the SRX Series.”
As Deegan waits to hop back in the SRX Series in July, the California-native will be looking for another strong performance in the Truck Series at Sonoma, bringing an added confidence back to her home state.
“I think I’ve got some good notes from the year’s past of me going there,” Deegan said. “Obviously, the trucks haven’t been there since ’98, so it’s hard to go off notes from then, but I think having that little bit of experience in the west series is going to help a lot – just firing off in practice, knowing what you want out of the truck, knowing how it kind of should feel and have at least an idea of it, and knowing those kind of markers on the track, so I’m excited.”