Hailie Deegan finished 3rd at Douglas County, as Bill McAnally Racing teammate Derek Kraus dominated the NASCAR K&N Pro weekend.
Hailie Deegan finished third in the NASCAR K&N West round at the Douglas County Speedway and brought home some more valuable points for the chamspionship hunt, as we enter in the second part of the calendar.
Deegan's Saturday started by taking second place in qualifying, only behind his Bill McAnally Racing teammate and main championship contender Derek Kraus.
The young Californian maintained the second position in the early stages of the race thanks to an clean start, until the first yellow flag came out on lap 23 following Ron Jay spinning in the #36.
When the race resumed, Deegan was passed by Jagger Jones and Kody Vanderwal.
Deegan managed to regain third place by winning an exciting duel with Vanderwal in the #43.
The race was then stopped by a red flag caused by an accident between the cars #77 (Koga) and the #35 (Canfield) at turn 2, with the latter having to retire. The marshals worked hard to clear the track from the oil lost by the involved cars and approximately half an hour later the green flag could be waved again at Douglas County Speedway.
Hailie Deegan had a good restart, moving up into second position again. It was a troubled restart for Jones instead, who fell back into fourth place as he was also passed by Vanderwal's Chevrolet.
On lap 62 the third caution was brought out by a spin at turn 3 for McGee in the number #37. This time Hailie Deegan had a slow restart and on lap 68 was demoted to fifth position after Vanderwal, Jones and Huddleston overtook the Toyota Camry #19 driven by the young American star.
The 17 year-old from Temecula didn't lingered and immediately attacked back Jones, as she retook P4 and kept putting pressure on Huddleston. The pair put on some show as the fight for 3rd unfolded, with Deegan winning back her position after some "door to door" action.
A few laps later another caution halted the race but Deegan made the most out of the fourth restart by moving past Kody Vanderwal for the second position.
On lap 127 Wood, McGee and Jay came together and the race was neutralized once again. With 18 laps to go, Jones passed Deegan at the last green flag, as the girl was involved in a contact with Huddleston who was relegated to fifth place.
Deegan managed to immediately move past Travis Milburn in the #08 and rapidly reclaimed P4. In the very last laps, Hailie successfully completed a move on Huddlestone and moved up to third place.
The race was dominated flag-to-flag by Deegan's team-mate, Derek Kraus, who flawlessly never put a foot wrong and thus increased his championship lead over Deegan by eight points. Jones took second, Deegan was third at the chequered flag but was slightly disappointed by the result, as she described her race "average".
Brittney Zamora completed a convincing race in P5.
BMR continued its dominant tradition at the track, winning 8 out of the 9 rounds at Roseburg.
NASCAR K&N Pro Series will be back on track at Iowa Speedway on July 26th.
In Hailies's words:
“It was a very average race. I think I had a good car to win." "Not a horrible weekend, not a great one.”
Ph credits: NASCAR