After a top-10 had slipped away in the closing stages of her full-time NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut last week, Hailie Deegan returns to the Daytona Road Course after experiences in ARCA and IMSA, while Jennifer Jo-Cobb tries to keep momentum after a very positive opening round.
One week from her full-time debut in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Daytona International Speedway, Hailie Deegan will jump back into the seat of the #01 Monster Energy Ford F-150 this Friday for the second round of the 2021 season on the Daytona Road Course layout.
The Californian young star was protagonist of a strong season opener a few days ago, when she fought for the top 5 throughout the race, but a spin in the final stages forced Deegan to finish in P24 - a result that didn't reflect her remarkable pace and promising performances in the first race event of 2021.
“Daytona was so much fun", she said. "Being able to race there is such a blessing and not many drivers get to say that they've raced at Daytona in their lifetime. There's a lot of drivers out there that have a goal of just getting the opportunity to race at Daytona, so being able to race there was a cool experience." - added Hailie Deegan about her first race in the Truck series at Daytona.
The 19-year old driver will now tackle the second round of the Nascar Camping World Truck Series at the same venue, but this time on the different track layout.
Deegan had already competed at Daytona – one of the most important places in American motorsport – last year in the ARCA Menards event, when she finished the race in a notable sixth place. In 2020, Deegan established herself as one of NASCAR brightest stars and battled for the championship in her rookie full-season campaign.
The young lady from Temecula collected four top 5 finishes and 17 top-ten out of the 20 ARCA events in 2020, and was ultimately classified third in the championship rankings.
After proving her potential in the K&N Pro Series in 2018/2019 and then in the ARCA Menards series, Hailie Deegan continues to climb to the NASCAR ladder and steps up to a full Truck season – a championship where she had the chance to enter a few races towards the end of 2020.
In January 2020, the Ford driver also competed on the Daytona Road Course at the wheel of the Ford Mustang GT4 in the four-hour IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race, in support of the world renowned 24 hours of Daytona.
"Having done the race in ARCA on the road course is so helpful because it's not going to take as much time for me to learn the track", she explained.
"I'm going to be able to take more time to learn about the truck and work on the setup throughout the race."
"The ARCA race on the road course was a lot of fun, but it was a little bit wet because it was raining before the race. That will probably be the biggest difference in the track from ARCA to the trucks, a wet track versus a dry one. But if it rains before the truck race, I'll definitely have an idea of what it's going to gel like.” - said Deegan.
Also in the race will be experienced NASCAR racer Jennifer Jo Cobb, racing in her 14th full-season of Truck racing for her own JCC Racing team. Jo Cobb had a very positive start of the 2021 campaign last week, when she qualified P16 out of a massive 46-truck field and had a clean race despite the many yellow flags and accidents. Jennifer crossed the finish line in P18 – a promising result for the driver of the #10 Chevrolet Silverado.
The green flag at the BrakeBest Pads 159 will be waved on Friday 19th February at 7.30 p.m. ET, with Hailie Deegan taking the start from from the 23rd position and Jennifer Jo Cobb in 17th.