Hailie Deegan completed the ARCA Menards round at Michigan International Speedway by adding another top ten result to her 2020 campaign
Hailie Deegan jumped back behind the wheel of the DGR Crosley's Ford Fusion at Michigan International Speedway as she continued the ARCA Menards tour de force following the 2020 compressed season schedule.
So far, Deegan earned two top five and eight top ten finishes, in what is an extremely positive rookie full-schedule ARCA championship.
Last week, the Toledo round finished earlier than expected due to the challenging weather conditions and when the Californian lady was running a consistent race close to the top spots.
Deegan spent the days before the VizCom 200 event at the simulator, under the precious supervision of NASCAR Cup Series expert David Regan.
"I spent some time on the Ford simulator practicing for Michigan to get a baseline since you don't know if you will be wide open there because I know they have done a couple things to the ARCA cars now." - she explained.
"It's just kind of guessing how the setup will be, but we'll figure it out when we get there, although we won't have a ton of practice. We'll try to get a decent setup and get a good finish. Being consistent and not making mistakes is so important, along with the car's setup."
Starting from seventh, Hailie Deegan ran a solid race in the proximity of the top five positions for whole the race but never with a real chance to fight for the victory.
The DGR Crosley lady closed the first stint in sixth place, when the yellow flag for the race break came out on lap 30. She dropped two positions at the restart but fought back and re-claimed sixth on lap 53, before an accident after the half-way point placed her in seventh position at the final race-break on lap 60.
The last stint of the Michigan round turned out to be pretty uneventful for the 18-year old star, as she could not find the pace to charge through the field. Nonetheless, Deegan was able to move up to sixth following the restart and took home another convincing Top Ten finish.
Bret Holmes and Riley Herbst were the protagonists up ahead for victory in Brooklyn's Sunday night, with the current second-placed driver in the general championship standings able to lead the race for 61 laps before engaging in an intese battle that would ultimately force him to give up the leadership to 21-year old Herbst - that claimed his second career ARCA Menards triumph.
Championship leader Micheal Self rounded out the top three, as he keeps holding the stat of finishing every round so far inside the top-10 - despite now coming under big pressure from Bret Holmes, that with his second place at Michigan has significantly closed the gap in the standings: only four points now separate the two drivers. Hailie Deegan retains fourth place in the classify, 47 points behind Self.
Drew Dollar crossed the finish line in fourth, followed by NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Anthony Alfredo.
"Our Monster Energy Ford was just way too tight today. We made adjustement during the both race breaks,but never could get it freed up. By the ned of the race the field was so strung out there was no way to cach anyone to gain any more spots" - said Deegan.
"I'm excited to go road racing next weekend at Daytona since I have some experience on that course from my IMSA testing and race earlier this year. It should be a lot of fun."
As Deegan said, Daytona will host the twelfth round of the 2020 ARCA Menards Series season, next weekend.