Joey Logano to replace Hailie Deegan in No. 15 AM Racing car for Chicago Street Race
A wild bit of news ahead of the Chicago Street Race weekend. Joey Logano is replacing Hailie Deegan in the No. 15 car. The NASCAR champion wants to get more laps in on the course and that means Deegan is out of the car this weekend.
With how Hailie Deegan’s season has gone, it isn’t like this hurts her all that much. She isn’t going to pick up any points. But she has been at the bottom of the standings out of the full-time drivers.
Joey Logano gets to hop in this AM Racing ride, and maybe help the team get better. It also gives him more lap time on a course that has only been raced once.
This season has not gone according to plan for Hailie Deegan. She has no top-5s and no top-10s. On the season, she has only finished inside of the top-20 on four occasions with a season-best finish of P12 at Talladega.
Finishes of P33, P32, P25, P32, and P28 probably didn’t help keep her in the seat for this weekend. Perhaps this was always the plan, but Deegan was supposed to be full-time this season. This changes that.
Sitting at 27th overall in the standings, it probably won’t matter much. What does this say about Deegan and her future with AM Racing? When a driver is pulled from their seat, even for a single race, it raises questions.
Even though Deegan has sponsorship and is popular, at some point the results have to show up. The Xfinity Series has not been the solution that she needed to start running well on a consistent basis.
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Hailie Deegan will forfeit her playoff eligibility by missing the Chicago race.
AM Racing explains decision to replace Hailie Deegan
With the announcement that Joey Logano is racing in their car this weekend, AM Racing put out a full statement on the matter. This is to help the team improve and get better results for Deegan in the future, or whoever is in the car.
“The level of competition in the Xfinity Series is as competitive as it’s ever been,” team president Wade Moore said. It is our goal at AM Racing to field a competitive race team through our technical alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing and provide any of our drivers the best equipment and opportunity to be successful on track each weekend.
“With that being said, we haven’t had the success on track that we were hoping for in the first half of the season. When the opportunity to have Joey in the car at Chicago became a possibility, we felt we needed to take advantage of the knowledge and feedback that a two-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion could provide our teams’ growth.”
To me, those quotes don’t bode well for Hailie Deegan. Moore didn’t mention her name in his quotes at all. “Any of our drivers” is a statement you say when you have multiple drivers. Deegan has been the only one in the 15 car. This will be interesting to watch moving forward.