NASCAR questions: Hailie Deegan, SVG pack Xfinity Series with star power. How will they do?
Editor’s note: This is the fifth and final installment in a five-part series examining questions entering the 2024 NASCAR season.
The Xfinity Series may be NASCAR’s minor leagues, but there’s nothing minor about the star power it will pack in 2024.
Certainly, the confirmed full-time series debuts of Hailie Deegan and Shane van Gisbergen will be storylines to monitor throughout the year. The development of both could pay major dividends for the future of the sport.
There are also numerous reports swirling that Frankie Muniz, the former star of the sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle,” will also be a full-time Xfinity driver next season, though he has yet to officially announce his 2024 plans. Muniz spent his rookie season in 2023 in the ARCA Menards Series, finishing fourth in points.
DAYTONA DOUBLE: 2024 NASCAR season opens fast for Shane Van Gisbergen in ARCA, Xfinity
So, how will they fare in their rookie seasons on the doorstep of Cup Series?
By now, Deegan, a three-time winner of the Truck Series most popular driver award, and her importance as NASCAR’s preeminent female driver, are well documented. So too are her struggles in in the Craftsman Truck Series, where in three seasons plus one race in 2020, she managed just five top-10 finishes with no top 5s and no wins across 68 starts.
It’s an interesting situation that Deegan lands in, driving a second Ford Mustang for AM Racing. The team made its single-car debut last year with Brett Moffitt piloting the No. 25 car to nine top 10s, with a best showing of fourth at the Chicago Street Course.
So far, Moffitt hasn’t announced his plans for 2024 either but on Tuesday evening, Joe Williams, who served as Moffitt’s crew chief in 2023, was named Deegan’s crew chief for 2024. With Deegan set to run the 15 car, could Muniz be a possibility in the 25?
How’s that for star power?
But with Muniz’s plans still not confirmed, sizing up his prospects can wait.
As for Deegan, with her name and sponsorship clout (primarily with Monster Energy), promotion was never going to be strictly performance-based. And it’s not like Truck Series success is some kind of prerequisite for being good in the Cup Series. Ryan Blaney is the first Cup champion in the last nine years to have even run a full Truck Series season — he competed for Brad Keselowski Racing in 2013 and 2014.
And there are signs Deegan may simply be better suited for driving a car. She’s the only female to ever win in the K&N Pro Series West, where she went to Victory Lane thrice.
In her only full season in the ARCA Menards Series, she finished ninth or better in 17 of 20 events, including three podiums. There’s also been a couple of strong efforts in the SRX Series, most notably a pair of second-places (Knoxville in 2021 and Eldora this year).
Also, there was a 13th-place showing in her only Xfinity start to date, which came at Las Vegas in 2022.
Yet, Deegan has much more to offer than finishes. She’s a 22-year-old with 1.5 million Instagram followers. Her brother, Haiden, is a blossoming star in motocross. And of course, her father Brian is an X Games veteran and motocross legend as well.
So, plenty of fans will tune in on Saturdays to watch Deegan, while van Gisbergen figures to be a draw as well.
The man quickly introduced to American race fans as SVG burst onto the NASCAR radar last year, arriving in Chicago and beating down a field of veteran Cup Series drivers, claiming a win in the inaugural Chicago Street Race. He became the first driver to win his Cup Series debut since Johnny Rutherford won a Daytona 500 qualifying race way back in 1963.
SVG is undoubtedly more seasoned than Deegan, having already won 80 races and three championship in the Supercars Championship, and he’s made appearances in the Rolex 24, 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring, among others.
Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, van Gisbergen opens up the possibility of bringing the Southeast quadrant of the globe into NASCAR as well, and certainly that’s attractive to both the governing body and potential sponsors.
And it’s fairly easy to argue his situation is better than Deegan’s. He will drive the No. 97 car for Kaulig Racing, an organization that produced the eighth- and ninth-place finishers in the series last year (Daniel Hemric and Chandler Smith). Joining SVG will be Josh Williams and AJ Allmendinger, the latter of whom is one of the best road-course drivers in the world by nearly any metric.
But while Deegan has years of oval racing behind her, van Gisbergen is such a newbie that NASCAR is requiring him to run the ARCA race at Daytona before he’s permitted to run the Xfinity Series opener later that afternoon. He finished 19th in a Craftsman Truck Series race at Indianapolis Raceway Park last year.
So, how do van Gisbergen and Deegan fare in 2024? There’s certainly talent and potential riding with both, and their successes could do wonders for the growth of the Xfinity Series and NASCAR in general.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Hailie Deegan, SVG set for NASCAR Xfinity Series. Can they succeed?
