Haley Constance has been racing for 17 years and has never been down on herself behind the wheel.
But this season, after so many races over the last two decades, marked the first time she entered every night believing she had a chance to visit Victory Lane.
“Going into a race, I think to myself, ‘OK, I can win,'” Constance said. “I know what that feeling is like, and I know what it’s like to lead a race and be in the lead for restarts. So, I think just that confidence has really built me as a driver, and then also my team’s confidence in me and my confidence is them makes the communication and feedback better.
“I can say what it feels like when I have a really good car and we’ve won the race and take notes from that, so I think all of that has really helped.”
That mindset worked in 2026. Constance, 21, won seven NASCAR-sanctioned races at Washington’s Evergreen Speedway on the way to her first title in the track’s Speedway Chevrolet Pro Late Model division.
Constance, who also won the Washington state championship, is this year’s recipient of the Wendell Scott Trailblazer Award, given annually to an outstanding minority or female driver in the NASCAR Local Racing Series who breaks barriers and paves his or her own path to success on and off the track — much like the award’s namesake, NASCAR Hall of Famer Wendell Scott. Recent award recipients include NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series regulars Rajah Caruth and Nick Sanchez.
“It’s incredible,” Constance said. “I really wasn’t sure about the award when I first heard about it, so I did some research and looked into it a little bit more. I didn’t realize how big of a deal the award actually was. After I did some more research and I talked to my parents about it, it’s an incredible deal, and I’m super excited.
“Especially being among a bunch of other incredible drivers who have also won the award and seeing what they’ve done in their careers now, it makes me really excited for my future.”
Constance began racing when she was 4 and has been competing at Evergreen for nine years. Her success is made even more impressive by the fact her team consists of only two people working on the car throughout the week: Constance and her dad Joe.
Joe, who runs Joe’s Chassis, built from scratch the late model chassis his daughter races.
“He’s like my crew chief, my spotter, my dad, obviously, my sponsor, all of the above,” Constance said. “It’s super rewarding. Me and my dad are like best friends, so I think we have just grown together over my entire racing career, because it’s been that way since I first started racing. He got me into racing, and then he’s coached me throughout my entire racing career.
“To finally get the championship after so many years, it’s just super, super rewarding because we know we put all the blood, sweat and tears into our own program and we’re beating teams and competing with teams who have so many guys on their crew.
“For us to just do it with such a small team, it’s just super rewarding.”
After finishing second in Evergreen’s points last year and third in 2024, Constance had a bit of a chip on her shoulder.
“I’m a big believer in mindset, and I think if you go into a race kind of questioning yourself, thinking maybe you don’t have the best car, you don’t have the driving ability to win the race, or you think your competitors are better than you, I really, truly believe that that’s going to make it so that you can’t win the race,” Constance said. “Confidence is one of the most important things you can have as a driver.
“It’s tough, because confidence can only go so far, because there’s so much luck involved in racing that every race you do have a little bit of doubt, like, something could go wrong. The one race I lost this year, it was because we had a mechanical failure on the car, so there’s just little things like that that can happen.
“But I would definitely say this year was probably one of the years where I had 100 percent confidence in my driving.”
Joe made a deal with his daughter at the end of last season, which was part of her motivation for 2026. Once Constance proved she could win a championship at her home track, her dad would let her travel the country to race the following year.
So in 2027, Constance plans to run the entire CARS Tour West schedule, which spans from Washington to Idaho and Colorado.
“I think going into the season, that just gave me a lot of motivation to do the best I could for me and my team because I really like traveling for racing instead of staying at the same track,” she said. “I really like learning new tracks, because every track has its own character. More so, I’m excited for the competition and racing against different drivers, because I think each driver has their unique style of racing, too.
“So I think it’s just going to build me as a driver even more. I think that’s what I’m most excited for.”
She’ll no doubt take the confidence and growth she experienced in her award-winning season into the future — no matter where she’s racing.
“It was by far the best season of my racing career,” Constance said. “We got a lot of wins this season. Honestly, I couldn’t have hoped for a better season going into it. It was really exciting. A really, really good year for my team.
“I built a lot of confidence, so we’re excited to keep the momentum going for the next season.”