Hailie Deegan's swap of crew chiefs met with bad breaks at Richmond truck race
Hailie Deegan's NASCAR team owner, David Gilliland, did some swapping of crew chiefs prior to last Saturday night's Truck Series race at Richmond.
Five races remain to see if the change atop the pit box brings improved results, but the initial effort didn't work out well. With veteran crew chief Jerry Baxter calling the shots for Deegan's No. 1 Ford, the second-year Truck Series driver finished 26th in the 36-truck field, three laps off the pace.
She radioed Baxter early in the race to tell him her F-150 was loose entering and exiting the corners. Later, a pit-crew violation sent her back to 32nd on a restart, but she battled back to 21st by the end of Stage 2.
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However, was a commitment-line violation on the next round of pit stops tha sent her to the back yet again, from where she whittled her way back to 26th by the checkers. Part-time teammate Taylor Gray finished sixth while full-time teammate Tanner Gray was 16th.
The Truck Series is off the next three weeks before returning to the track Sept. 9 at Kansas.
Deegan won twice, in 14 starts, in NASCAR's K&N West Series in 2019, then posted 17 top-10s in 20 ARCA Series starts in 2020 before moving full time to trucks, where she's yet to match those numbers — she has just two top-10s in 40 starts over 2021-22.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: For Hailie Deegan after crew chief swap: So far, so meh
