Katherine Legge — a reputation many have seen throughout varied racing paddocks over time, significantly as a veteran sports activities automotive and IndyCar driver — will make her NASCAR Cup Sequence debut at Phoenix Raceway this weekend. The 44-year-old turns into simply the seventeenth lady to ever compete on the highest degree of inventory automotive racing, and the primary since Danica Patrick, who made her ultimate begin within the 2018 Daytona 500.
Legge’s expertise in inventory automobiles is proscribed, making 4 Xfinity begins in 2018 and a fifth final 12 months, ending as excessive as 14th at Highway America. She additionally made her ARCA debut earlier this 12 months at Daytona, beginning ninth earlier than being collected in an early wreck and failing to complete.
She could also be a rookie behind the wheel of a NASCAR inventory automotive, however her racing resume is deep. She has 47 IndyCar begins together with 4 within the Indianapolis 500. She additionally has practically 100 begins within the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Sequence, that includes in a dozen Rolex 24 Hour races at Daytona with a runner-up end in her class in 2018. She additionally has 4 class victories, all coming as the motive force of an Acura NSX GT3 within the GTD class. She even ran a pair Formulation E races again in 2014. Of notice, she was the primary lady to win a serious open-wheel race in America when she took the checkered flag in a Toyota Atlantic Sequence race in 2005.
The veteran driver has even fairly not too long ago expressed a want to get extra concerned in NASCAR and that is the subsequent step to doing that. Some have instructed she may turn out to be the primary lady to finish the Indy 500/Coke 600 double. However as of this writing, no plans for that endeavor are in place.
Katherine Legge, SS-Inexperienced Mild Racing, Blast Equality Collab Chevrolet Camaro
Picture by: Jared East / NKP / Motorsport Photos
An enormous a part of her racing journey has been attempting totally different sorts of tracks, and Phoenix is very distinctive amongst ovals in NASCAR because of its wild dogleg alongside the entrance stretch, which permits the sphere to fan out and use a lot of the apron, even within the corners. She’ll get firsthand expertise with it this weekend piloting the No. 78 Stay Quick Motorsports Chevrolet with sponsorship from DROPLiGHT. The crew, which has been round since 2020, at the moment runs a partial schedule within the NASCAR Cup Sequence. They didn’t make this 12 months’s Daytona 500, however ran the Atlanta race with crew proprietor B.J. McLeod behind the wheel.
Amongst different girls who’ve competed within the Cup Sequence, Patrick has essentially the most begins of any feminine driver within the sport’s historical past, working 191 races. Nevertheless, it was Sara Christian in NASCAR’s inaugural season (1949) who earned the very best end with a fifth-place end in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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Nick DeGroot
NASCAR Cup
Katherine Legge
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