Hailie Deegan was the guest on Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s popular podcast on July 1 and entertained Junior and his sister Kelley for nearly an hour. One question concerned Hailie's thoughts on now spending much of the racing season in a home the family bought near the heartbeat of NASCAR in North Carolina.
Deegan said she was amazed that North Carolinians, with their stock car heritage, moved so slowly when driving.
"Five miles under the speed limit and two-wide on the freeway; I hate it," she said. "Two-wide on the freeway! It gets me so frustrated."
This byplay was mentioned to Deegan in a phone conversation Friday, with the suggestion from a reporter that patience might not be her virtue.
"No, it is not," she said. "I don't have much."
And yet the challenge for Deegan is to embrace that — patience — as she builds her racing career. On Saturday night, she will be running in the ARCA Menards Series race at Elko Speedway, a 250-lapper that is the Twin Cities short track's event of the season.
It will be Deegan's last race as a 17-year-old. Her 18th birthday is Thursday. She will spend that weekend at the notorious Loudon track in New Hampshire, running in a K&N Pro Series East race on Saturday — one of the prelims to the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup main event on Sunday.
Hailie will be around the big guns. She will be getting congratulations for two wins in K&N Pro Series West in 2019. She will be getting praise for the aggressive style used to get those wins. She might even be told by important people that she can be the next big thing in NASCAR.