Young NASCAR star Hailie Deegan has won in thrilling fashion her third K&N Pro Series race last weekend in Colorado.
The 17 years-old girl from California held the top spot of the standings for most of the race, also making herself the protagonist of very effective restarts after the cautions.
Nonetheless, the race was only decided on the last lap after the fourth yellow flag restart: when the green flag fell, Kraus got close enough to take the inside from Deegan into Turn 1 and took the lead.
When a very combative Deegan tried to win back her position, the two teammates collided, with Kraus having worst outcome while Hailie went on to win probably the most incredible race of the season.
"On the restart, (Jagger Jones, who was second) I thought that was who was going to run me hard. So I picked the bottom when I was normally picking the top. I went into that corner, went in hard, so I was already kind of on the edge. I was not expecting my teammate with a broke sway-bar to take a swing at me like that" - Deegan said.
"Derek saw a gap opening up, he took advantage of it and he got a little rough," team owner McAnally said. "Hailie got a little rough. I know she didn't mean to or want to take Derek out. She wanted to win. It just wound up where it took him out and that's not the way I like to have my teammates race" - those were the words from team owner Bill McAnally.
This is the third K&N win for Hailie Deegan, the second of this season so far. The series will be back in action on June 22 at Sonoma Raceway.
In Hailie's words:
“We had this race in the bag until that caution was brought out. I wasn't going to lose the race because of that.”
Ph credits: Meg Oliphant/NASCAR