Hailie Deegan gives a clear verdict on Ford’s Crown Vic car

The HMD Motorsports driver Hailie Deegan was recently seen at the Freedom 500 event. Deegan shared an Instagram story about the same.

On March 2, Deegan made her open-wheel debut at the Indy NXT by Firestone during the St. Petersburg Grand Prix. She qualified in 21st place for her maiden qualifying session with the #38 car and finished the race in 14th place after keeping a clean race and few incidents on the opening lap.

The 23-year-old American moved to Indy NXT after she failed to secure the sponsorship needed to proceed further in stock racing. She drove for AM Racing in the Xfinity series. Her best finish was at Ag-Pro 300, in 12th place.

Deegan recently shared an Instagram story of her at the Freedom 500 race. She captioned the story as:

"@ford built an absolute tank of a car when it comes to these Crown Vic's 😂@monsterenergy".

Screengrab of Hailie Deegan's Instagram story | Source: IG/@hailiedeegan

Deegan was driving the Purple Crown Victoria for the Freedom 500 with a huge monster logo on the front of the car. The car also had her entry #138 painted on the doors. She, however, didn't win the race.

Hailie Deegan had a rough start to her debut race weekend. She was unfamiliar with the street course and struggled to adapt to the circuit. She spoke to Dalton Hopkins after the race and said:

"Yeah I mean, I think it was a fun experience. I had a blast. I mean my goal for this, I didn’t have like this huge expectation. Especially for this one just because it’s a street course. I don’t want to do anything dumb to where I hurt the car and lose out on track time. So, I kind of went into this weekend like, okay, like 95% cautiously aggressive, learn as much as I can."

"More so use all the time, valuable time that I could to get experience. So, going into it, I knew I was going to be off a little bit here. I think I’m really looking forward to Barber [Motorsports Park], because I’ve been there before," she added.

Deegan will look forward to improving at the upcoming Barbar Motorsport Park race, which is scheduled to take place on May 4. She has previously raced at this track during her stock racing tenure.

Hailie Deegan speaks about unusual problem at her first Indycar NXT oval test

Hailie Deegan took part in her maiden oval test this week. The rookie uploaded a YouTube vlog of the behind the scenes of the testing at the Nashville oval. In the video, she spoke about the unusual difficulties she faced.

The 23-year-old gained experience at the oval during her NASCAR tenure. However, Deegan explained that she faced an unusual problem with her helmet due to excessive air flow. She explained in her Youtube video:

"We did the install lap for the gears and stuff, but I haven't got to really make a lap just yet. I'm having an issue with my head trying to rip off on the straightaways. Air is getting under my helmet and I think it was my seating position that I was in the car. So we worked on it a little bit, working on the header, working on a few things."

The former NASCAR driver also spoke to her fellow racers about the issue. They stated that it was something that all of them experienced around the oval during their rookie years.

"Everyone I talked to goes, 'Oh yeah, my first year, I had that same issue.' I thought I fixed it for the road courses, but things are gonna be exaggerated when you're going 190 mph on an oval. I made one lap, I wasn't even up to speed, just getting the tires warmed and stuff and it grabbed under my helmet and started strangling me back. I was like (on the team radio), 'Okay guys, coming in. I'm bringing it to you.'"

Hailie Deegan made a huge improvement at the Nashville oval test as she finished 15th fastest of the 19 drivers. During the St. Petersburg pre-season test, she couldn't find as much pace as she would have liked to, which resulted in her being way off the pace.