Kevin Harvick Says Hailie Deegan Career Changed by Bad Move

Hailie Deegan before qualifying at Texas.

Getty Hailie Deegan at Texas.

Kevin Harvick knows what it takes to be successful in NASCAR. That’s how he won 60 Cup Series races and the 2014 championship.

During his July 16 “Happy Hour” podcast, the Fox analyst discussed the news about Hailie Deegan parting ways with AM Racing and said her lack of success can be attributed to a single move that changed the trajectory of her career.

“I don’t think that guidance and mentorship has been exactly what she needed for NASCAR,” Harvick said. “I think that the big mistake here was getting out of the Toyota development system. I don’t think Ford has a great development system, as far as the things that they do from ARCA all the way until you get to Cup. I don’t even know if they have a development system.

“So you get put in these situations to where you don’t have the resources and things that you need like Toyota does,” he said. “And Chevy doesn’t do it quite as well as Toyota does, but they do it better than Ford.

“So I think Ford has the worst development program, as far as their drivers go. I think Toyota has the best. And I think Chevy’s somewhere in the middle,” he said. “Getting out of that Toyota development program with all the resources and they’re willing to give time. And I think that she needed more time in the Truck Series getting that guidance and mentorship that she needed in order to develop into what she needed to be a NASCAR race car driver.

“And she carries this fan base off the racetrack that’s a big fan base, and I think that she just got pushed through too fast and wound up in the wrong development system for her to be successful. So I think the moment that she stepped outside of that Toyota development system was a bad move.”

Deegan was seen July 12 at an IndyCar event, sparking “conjecture” about a move to the Indy NXT Series, according to Newsweek.

Meanwhile, she will continue “broadening her horizons,” according to TobyChristie.com, the she competes on the weekend of July 20 in the SpeedTour All-Star Race in Connecticut.

Harvick Consistent About Hailie Deegan From Beginning

Harvick’s latest remarks about Deegan’s being rushed shouldn’t come as a surprise because he warned of that happening back in 2019, before she ever made her first start in a NASCAR national touring series race.

“The thing I like about Hailie is she loves to race,” Harvick told NASCAR.com in March 2019. “She’s very good at talking about racing and very energetic in doing things off the race track. But the thing that I like the most about Hailie is that her dad, Brian, has been there, done that and right now — and this is my opinion that I’ve voiced to both of them — is what’s the hurry?”

Harvick Paints Bleak Future for Deegan

Based on Harvick’s latest comments, Deegan and her team didn’t heed his advice in 2019 and pushed her through the system — the wrong one, according to Harvick — and it didn’t allow her to develop. So what does the future Hall of Famer think about the future of Deegan?