Hailie Deegan's Indy NXT journey reportedly reaches a dead end after just one season

Hailie Deegan's journey in Indy NXT, the feeder series to IndyCar, has reportedly come to an end after just one season. The 24-year-old raced dirt and stock cars until 2024, before an unfortunate split with AM Racing midway through the NASCAR Xfinity season left her without any racing commitments for the rest of the year.

Towards the end of the year, Deegan decided to pivot to open-wheel racing, a category she had no prior experience in. She participated in the final weekend of the Formula Regional Americas Championship, the doubleheader at COTA, with Arrow McLaren driver Nolan Siegel coaching her through the weekend.

In October last year, Hailie Deegan signed for HMD Motorsports to pilot the No. 38 entry in 2025. However, her rookie season was underwhelming on most counts. The 24-year-old's lack of experience in open-wheel cars, coupled with the physicality needed to race the quicker machines that lacked power steering, was a surprise.

Deegan failed to score a single Top 10 finish and usually qualified and finished races towards the back of the grid. As per reporter Marshall Pruett, she won't be returning for a second season in Indy NXT in 2026. In response to a fan's question on the RACER Mailbag, which summarized Hailie Deegan's season as being one of complete failure and felt a 2026 extension was off the cards, Pruett replied:

"The latest is everything you described. One and done. Graham Rahal made it plain in a call last week: You can teach a road racer to be an excellent oval races, but it’s damn near impossible to take an oval racer and train them to be an excellent road racer." "She tried to take her off-road and oval knowledge and add road racing to it, and there’s no doubt she could improve year by year if she wanted to make it her future, but it was never going to happen all at once in a single season of NXT. I don’t know where she’ll go next, but it isn’t NXT," he added.

Why Hailie Deegan struggled with Indy NXT's physicality despite being a fitness freak

Hailie Deegan racing at the INDY NXT by Firestone Race at WWTR - Source: Getty

Hailie Deegan began her professional racing career in 2018 with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, where she became the first woman to win a race in the series. In her second year in the series in 2019, she finished third in the standings, a feat she also repeated in her first full-time season in the ARCA Menards in 2020.

Though Deegan couldn't replicate a similar level of success in the NASCAR Truck Series from 2021 to 2023 and in the Xfinity Series in 2024, the physicality aspect of racing didn't bother her. She had always been into fitness.

However, the physicality needed for Indy NXT's open-wheel cars took her by surprise. The physical training aspect turned out to be one of the big challenges during her prep for Indy NXT, as she revealed in an interview before the season.

"I've always been into fitness. I've always loved working out, but it's not something I ever needed for NASCAR, ever. Like, it's one of the, I feel like, the most unphysical forms of racing, to be honest. Yeah, it's warm in the cars, but I never had an issue with heat, and I think that came from growing up racing in California, Arizona, where it's 110, 115 (degrees Fahrenheit) when you are racing during the day. I never had the cool suit or anything like that in the NASCAR side." "When it comes to the IndyCar of Indy NXT side of things, it is so much more physical, which I love. I love being able to train with a purpose. Before, I was just training to be in shape and be healthy," she added.

In September, a report by the Daily Downforce suggested that Hailie Deegan could return to the NASCAR Truck Series in 2026. There has been no confirmation about the same from her side.

Edited by Yash Kotak