Famed Motorsports Family Reveals the Unexpected Ways Growing Up in Front of Camera Changed Their Life (Exclusive)

Brian, Hailie and Haiden of the famed motorsports family tell PEOPLE about how they used their social media savvy to expand their brands beyond the race track

• Brian Deegan made his name as an X Games legend. Now he’s dad to son Haiden, 19, and daughter Hailie, 23, and he’s raised them to love racing as much as he does.
• Brian and his wife, Marissa, also put his kids on camera starting at an early age, when they would post YouTube videos as a family. Now the Deegan children are social media stars in their own rights.
• Hailie, Haiden and Brian spoke to PEOPLE about how they’ve managed to stay grounded as their racetrack wins, fame and follower counts have reached new heights over the years.

Competition comes naturally to the Deegan family. It’s the spirit that’s made them champions in the motorsports world, and it’s also driven their fame at high speeds off the track.

Brian Deegan, 50, paved his own path in freestyle motocross and rallycross racing. He was just 17 when he became a professional supercross rider, and his talent led him to be one of the most decorated X Games winners in history.

About two decades ago, Brian added another coveted title to his list of accolades: Dad. He and his wife, Marissa, are the proud parents of daughter Hailie, 23, and son Haiden, 19. Brian didn’t brake altogether to start a family; he raised his two children to reach his same high speeds.

Today, the Deegan kids have made their own names in racing. At 15, Hailie became the only youth driver to win the Lucas Oil Off Road Pro Series Driver of the Year award, and she continues to make waves in stock car and Indy car racing. Haiden made history when he landed a backflip on a motorcycle at age 10, and he’s similarly gone on to multi-championship glory.

While the Deegans shine individually, they’ve collectively made an impact on the racing world by leaning into the power of social media. Speaking to PEOPLE exclusively, the trio looks back at where it all began, starting with Brian’s presence online and later evolving into their Deegan family YouTube page around 2009.

Brian says he initially used YouTube and Facebook platforms to talk about his heyday in action sports. He would look back on his greatest wins, recall his worst injuries or tell tales of his “rebel” racing group, The Metal Militia.

“Once I got married, had kids, things change in life. Your paces change, and I feel like you just grow up and have different looks on life and I feel like that is how the social had to change with that,” he says. “The family story was just such a cool story, as far as trying to raise kids and racing.”

The dad of three continues, “There’s not a lot of other families out there that have multiple kids that are successful in racing along with the adult that’s had it paved that way … I can think of some families out there that have done a good job at it. There’s just not a ton out there that have a whole family movement.”

As social media has grown, so too has the Deegans’ presence on it. All three of the racers have their own pages, and all three have over 1 million followers individually on Instagram. Hailie — who is currently racing in the INDY NXT series — tells PEOPLE that she appreciates how her parents set her up for viral success at an early age.

“My parents started our accounts when we were young, so we could have those names on the accounts and everything and they would just progressively all grow together,” she explains. Then, once she and Haiden became old enough to steer their own profiles, they tapped into that inherent will-to-win woven into their DNA.

“When I was younger my sister and I always competed on who could get the most followers, page views and likes,” says Haiden. “Hailie had a head start on me, but it was very competitive with the two of us.”

The SMX World Championship series racer adds, “We’re just a competitive family in everything we do.”

“I can’t tell you how many times it was always like, ‘Oh, I have more followers than you now,'” the leading female driver shares. “We were constantly in competition with each other of who can have more followers, and I think that kind of made a fun aspect to it.”

Still, the family “always grew together,” says Hailie. “We always did a bunch of stuff together. We were always recording with each other and filming stuff together and I think it’s because we were just around each other so much.”

Behind all the playful competition and resulting online engagement, Brian instilled in his kids a valuable lesson in marketing and branding as it relates to content creation.

“The best way I can describe it is just your name is your stock value and you’re always trying to build that stock. And I try to always teach that social media is a business … and you’re trying to build brand awareness for your sponsors. The more views and the more attention you get, the more value there is,” he tells PEOPLE.

The racing veteran isn’t blind to the negative sides of social media. He admits that his wife was particularly “protective” when it came to her kids’ online activity. With their kids’ help, they generally oversaw Hailie and Haiden’s channels until they were well into their teen years.

“Just because as a parent you still want to protect your kids from the things that the internet can subject them to,” Brian explains. “You got to help teach them too, to build thick skin … it’s just part of the process of building the network and you can’t take that [negative] stuff to heart. I always say it’s just in and out. It just comes and goes and you just can’t take too much meaning to it.”

He continues, “The meaning should come from the ones you love and your family. That’s the ones you’re going to listen to. And other than that, it’s just comments.”

Brian maintains that the “good outweighs the bad” if used correctly, as his offspring do. “I feel like the kids have done a great job with building their brands through social and keeping it clean and keeping it professional,” he says.

Through it all, Marissa and Brian have continuously evaluated how to keep their kids grounded and protect their family’s privacy. There have been times, he admits, when they’ve questioned whether or not they wanted this level of exposure in the media. At the end of the day, however, the whole family owns the fact that they’ve chosen to be in the spotlight.

Plus, the parents did give Hailie and Haiden the right to opt-out if they wanted to.

“I wasn’t like, ‘Hey, you have to do this.’ It was their passion and they enjoyed doing it,” he reflects. “Let’s do it and let’s build it the farthest we can go, and I feel like now it’s just us telling a story.”

Considering the tall platform they stand on, all five of the Deegans are dedicated to representing their family in the most authentic way possible. Sometimes that means admitting that they — like any other family — make mistakes. (The siblings also have a 13-year-old brother, Hudson.)

“I almost feel an obligation to tell the story of this family that we have our core beliefs. We try to put family first. And like I said, we are a family that has faith and we stick together,” says Brian. “And yes, we’re going to screw up … Yes, it gets caught on camera, but we also deal with that, have to own it. We mess up and we’re human.”

Haiden agrees that being in the spotlight has always “just been my normal,” he says, adding, “Growing up like that taught me the importance of staying grounded and locked in on my goals.”

Now the talented teen says he considers filming part of his training routine, career and responsibility for the job. Meanwhile, Hailie says that having so much experience in front of an audience has made it easier to be herself and stay grounded when it comes to creating content.

“[I think] there’s a lot of influencer people out there who put on a persona when they’re being filmed because they did grow up with a normal childhood. And so they feel like for social media, they almost have to try to be either over the top or different person,” she tells PEOPLE. “But with all of us, that was normal. Everyone was always filming. It was totally fine. You’d just be how you are normally.”

But while social media content has become second nature to the Deegans, they’ve stepped around the possibility of a reality show, despite fielding some offers over the years. For one thing, all three of the racing relations have their hands in separate fields of the industry: Hailie’s involved in the Indy sect, Haiden is riding out Supercross and Brian is still driving for off-road series.

Another factor, says Brian, is the question of creative control. He says many reality show offers have laid claim to the final edit. That’s a deal breaker for the Deegans.

Hailie doesn’t even think she’d have the time for such an involved stint since she’s quite busy with her career in general.

“The moment we’d say we’d do a pilot and test something out, I couldn’t do it. I could not have that much time to be taken away from what we’re trying to accomplish. And it changes up your whole days. It changes up everything you have going on,” she says.

Not to mention the fact that she isn’t sure the Deegans have the level of internal conflict necessary to drive and feed viewership. “A lot of reality shows are drama within the family, and I think most of our drama is on the outside of the family, so the racing side of things,” she adds.

All that said, Brian isn’t ruling out the possibility of TV in the future — so long as it’s not at the risk of their ever-growing careers and brands.

“If there was ever a show that came along, it was a perfect setting and everything worked out and we had final control of the look of it and everything, then who knows? Maybe,” he notes, and he does admit that despite their fame, the Deegans are in many ways relatable: “We share a lot of similarities with just normal other families of just trying to be the dad and mom and trying to raise the kids a certain way.”

But it’s what makes them such a standout group that will ultimately determine whether or not they’re right to appear beyond social media. “It would have to be the right timing because racing comes first for the kids right now,” says Brian. “Their goal is to be the best at their racing.”