Hailie Deegan Indy NXT exit has become official, as her debut year in the open-wheel racing series concludes without a return for 2026. The 24-year-old’s attempt to transition from her background in dirt and stock cars to Indy NXT, the development category for IndyCar, faced unexpected challenges and led to the end of her partnership with HMD Motorsports after just one season.
Deegan started the year racing for AM Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but midway through the season, a split left her without commitments for the rest of 2024. Seeking a new direction, she pursued a late-year switch to open-wheel racing, entering the Formula Regional Americas Championship doubleheader at COTA, where Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel provided mentoring support. In October, Deegan signed with HMD Motorsports to pilot the No. 38 entry for the 2025 Indy NXT season.
Her rookie campaign, however, revealed steep learning curves. With no prior open-wheel experience, Deegan found it difficult to adjust to the physical demands and lack of power steering in the faster Indy NXT cars. She consistently found herself qualifying and finishing near the back, failing to break into the Top 10 in any race throughout the season.
Motorsports journalist Marshall Pruett confirmed Deegan would not return to the championship in 2026, citing her underwhelming results and the immense difficulty of adapting from an oval-centric racing background to road racing at this level. During a fan Q&A for RACER, Pruett addressed Deegan’s future:
“The latest is everything you described. One and done. Graham Rahal made it plain in a call last week: You can teach a road racer to be an excellent oval races, but it’s damn near impossible to take an oval racer and train them to be an excellent road racer.”
“She tried to take her off-road and oval knowledge and add road racing to it, and there’s no doubt she could improve year by year if she wanted to make it her future, but it was never going to happen all at once in a single season of NXT. I don’t know where she’ll go next, but it isn’t NXT,” he added.
The Physical Demands of Indy NXT Surprised Even a Fitness Enthusiast
Deegan’s journey in racing began in 2018 with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, where she broke barriers by becoming the first woman to win a race in the series. She finished third in the championship both in her second K&N Pro Series campaign and her rookie ARCA Menards season, confirming her potential in stock car racing.
Despite this early promise, Deegan did not achieve similar results when she moved to the NASCAR Truck Series from 2021 to 2023 or during her short stint in the Xfinity Series in 2024. Notably, she never struggled physically in those series, citing her long-standing commitment to fitness routines as a foundation for her competitive edge.
However, the transition to Indy NXT proved to be a different level of physical test. The strength requirements and intensity of the open-wheel machines, especially those lacking power steering, caught her off guard and became a central challenge during her preparation for the season. Deegan spoke candidly in an interview before the year about how Indy NXT forced her to refocus on training in ways that NASCAR never demanded:
“I’ve always been into fitness. I’ve always loved working out, but it’s not something I ever needed for NASCAR, ever. Like, it’s one of the, I feel like, the most unphysical forms of racing, to be honest. Yeah, it’s warm in the cars, but I never had an issue with heat, and I think that came from growing up racing in California, Arizona, where it’s 110, 115 (degrees Fahrenheit) when you are racing during the day. I never had the cool suit or anything like that in the NASCAR side.”
“When it comes to the IndyCar of Indy NXT side of things, it is so much more physical, which I love. I love being able to train with a purpose. Before, I was just training to be in shape and be healthy,” she added.
Even with her passion for fitness, adapting to the specific physical rigors of open-wheel racing within one season proved too great a leap, contributing to Deegan’s lack of competitiveness in the series.
Possible Paths Ahead as Deegan Assesses Her Racing Future
As of now, Hailie Deegan has not confirmed her next move after departing Indy NXT. A report from Daily Downforce in September suggested she could potentially return to the NASCAR Truck Series in 2026, but there has been no official statement from Deegan or her team regarding future plans.
Deegan’s short-lived experience with HMD Motorsports and the Indy NXT grid underscores both the promise and the steep barriers that drivers face when transitioning from oval and stock car disciplines to elite open-wheel racing. The difficulty of mastering new race formats, especially on the physically demanding and technical road courses that make up much of the Indy NXT calendar, shaped her season’s outcome.
This chapter in Deegan’s journey adds another layer to her racing story, which began with strong performances in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series and ARCA Menards Series and extended into more challenging territory with her bold but ultimately brief foray into open-wheel competition. The motorsports community will be watching closely to see whether Deegan returns to her stock car roots or carves an entirely new path forward after her Hailie Deegan Indy NXT exit.
