NASCAR driver reveals $6 MILLION reason for series EXIT

NASCAR driver Hailie Deegan has revealed the $6 million reason for leaving the series as she switches to open-wheel racing.

Deegan secured a multi-year deal with AM Racing for the 2024 Xfinity Series championship, but parted ways with the team and championship prematurely at the Tennessee Lottery 250, with her best finish of the year being 12th.

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The 23-year-old has proven popular with racing fans, however, after garnering nearly 5 million followers across all of her social media platforms, also racing in the Craftsman Truck Series from 2020 until 2023.

However, Deegan will find herself without a NASCAR seat in 2025, not wanting to race in the Truck Series anymore, and unable to secure the required funds to find a full-time seat in the Xfinity Series.

Why did Deegan leave NASCAR?

Instead, Deegan will drive for HMD Motorsports in this year’s Indy NXT season, and has highlighted how difficult it is for drivers to meet the costs of increasingly expensive NASCAR seats.

“I’m not actively trying to look for a ride or anything, but if a couple million dollars falls in my lap, awesome,” Deegan said to the Associated Press.

“Same thing for everybody. Not many opportunities come unless you got deep pockets. I think a lot of people fail to realize that on the NASCAR side of things, it is such a crazy number. So if $6 million to run for a quality Xfinity team just came out of nowhere, fell off a tree, for sure I’d do it.

“But the reality of things is in this economy right now, sponsorship and marketing budgets have been cut. It makes it a lot tougher. It’s already tough to find money to go racing.”

“It’s hard to to say to a sponsor, ‘You spend a couple 100 grand for this race, you’re going to get your value.’ You can’t promise that to people.

“So it’s very tough from that side. Obviously, I would have loved to run Xfinity full-time, but in a good car. The reality of that is, it takes a lot of sponsorship to do that.”

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