Hailie Deegan makes debut in NASCAR Trucks at Daytona. Ben Rhodes wins wreck-heavy race

Hailie Deegan’s spotter TJ Majors sounded like he barely took a breath during NASCAR’s race at Daytona International Speedway.

Majors, who is also the spotter for Cup driver Joey Logano, was in Deegan’s ear all night — feeding her pit calls, words of encouragement and the numbers of cars behind her.

Scratch that. Trucks behind her.

The Ford Development driver made her full-time debut in a NASCAR national series, the lower level Camping World Truck Series, Friday with David Gilliland Racing. She finished 24th and was already three laps down before a wreckfest at the flag took out multiple trucks.

Series veteran Ben Rhodes clinched the win and superspeedway star Jordan Anderson finished in second, but Deegan held her own, raced in the top-10 and skirted other big, multi-truck wrecks throughout the night race that ended in overtime. It was a solid debut for the 19-year-old driver primed to become a leading face of the sport as she ascends the competitive ranks.

“I didn’t realize how smart you have to be,” she told her team on the radio after falling back and missing an accident in the final 30 laps thanks to Majors’ advice. “There’s a lot more happening than the ARCA race here.”

The race delivered a steep learning curve for a rookie. There were 10 cautions called over the course of the evening, one of which Deegan brought out when she went nose-first into an inside wall after slight contact with another driver.

The intensity in the field escalated in the final stage and through the finish after the race was sent into an overtime shootout following a late-lap caution. Rhodes chased down Cory Roper in the final lap but raced to the outside just before the flag to beat him by a nose as the field crashed behind him. He soaked in the winning moments.

“As a driver, you are always asked about what your biggest accomplishment is,” Rhodes said. “This is it.”

It was Rhodes’ fourth career win in the series and first win at Daytona. For the win, he and his No. 99 ThorSport Racing Toyota team earned a $25,000 driver bonus and a $25,000 road crew bonus thanks to additional prize money Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis announced just before the race.

The expanded prize pool will also award the team (single entry) that leads the most laps during the season with a $50,000 driver bonus and $25,000 road crew bonus, and the championship driver will receive an electric pickup truck and electric RV. There’s an increased monetary incentive to win this season, and Deegan is in the mix with veterans, including a now two-time second-place finisher at Daytona, Anderson.

He was exuberant in his post-race press conference.

“As a kid growing up wanting to be a racecar driver, Daytona is the Holy Grail,” Anderson said. “Out of every single track we go to. It’s just so special.”

He called his second-place finish a “pure Moses” moment.

“To go from 11th or 12th, I think, coming to the white flag and just the way everything worked out,” Anderson said. “My whole life having to fight and claw for everything we have.”

The clawing through wrecks paid off at Daytona. Anderson and Rhodes and third-place finisher Roper can be content with their finishes. Deegan, whose series debut was a storyline of the race and received some major air time on Fox, will continue the learning process with Majors in her ear.

Daytona Truck Series race results

# — Rookie

This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 11:54 PM with the headline "Hailie Deegan makes debut in NASCAR Trucks at Daytona. Ben Rhodes wins wreck-heavy race."

Alexandra Andrejev

The Charlotte Observer

NASCAR and Charlotte FC beat reporter Alex Andrejev joined The Observer in January 2020 following an internship at The Washington Post. She is a two-time APSE award winner for her NASCAR beat coverage and National Motorsports Press Association award winner. She is the host of McClatchy’s podcast “Payback” about women’s soccer. Support my work with a digital subscription