In case you were living under a rock, Monster Energy Yamaha/Star Racing’s Haiden Deegan made his highly anticipated professional supercross debut over the weekend in Houston. The son for former freestyle motocross star Brian Deegan, Haiden had a lot of attention built behind him coming into the weekend as not only a highly-touted amateur racer, but also a well-known social media entity through vlogs on The Deegans YouTube channel. We’ll have to check the record books, but Haiden Deegan might be the first rider ever to make his debut with over a million people already following him on Instagram.
As such, the autograph line was extremely long, and the attention around him was on hyper-drive. All Deegan did was deliver on debut with an impressive fourth place result in the 250SX main event. A steady ride that saw him pass some big names and avoid mistakes that others made, Deegan rode it home to a top five result. We spoke to him afterwards, and even he could hardly believe it.
Racer X: Just kind of take me through the first experience, the jitters and the nerves of it all, and then how you feel at the end of the night.
Haiden Deegan: Oh, yeah. It was kind of a hectic day for me. I was just nervous. I wanted to do good because I just wanted to do good for myself and for the team and stuff. I wanted to prove that I belong up front and can run with those guys. The heat race was good. I got fourth, I think. Then in the main event I got a pretty decent start and just laid down good laps and made my way through the pack a little bit. Those guys weirdly make a lot of mistakes. Towards the end of the race, they started dropping back. I was just riding smooth, hitting my marks, breathing, and made my way. By the last lap, I was in fourth. I finished in fourth, and I was so happy.
Take me through what’s going through your head when you see some of the guys that you’re passing and battling with. Did you know what position you were in at that point in time at the end as well?
Yeah. It’s crazy. Passing Jeremy Martin, even passing Tom Vialle in the whoops and hearing the crowd go wild. That’s stuff is just so sweet. I can’t wait to be doing that passing for the lead. That’s going to be surreal. Nate Thrasher. There’s winning guys behind me. It’s crazy. It’s like, you’re racing with the pro guys now, the guys you watch. Most of these guys, some of them have been there for ten years, ten seasons. I used to watch these guys when I was like seven.
Going back to the heat race, it looked like you started off kind of blazing and then settled into a pace. Was that a conscious decision to kind of settle down and just get into a zone?
Yeah. Heat race I got into a comfortable position, and I was like, let’s just log laps and be there for the main event.
Looking forward to next week, what are some things that you’re going to take away from tonight that you can build on for next week?
I’d say next week have the same mindset, go out there, ride smooth. If I have a chance to be on the podium, we’re going to push for it, but just another weekend logging laps, being smart and progressing.
