Racing America Logo

Legge Hopes to Return to Cup After 'Baptism by Fire' in Phoenix Debut

Toby Christie

Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

The end result will show that Katherine Legge spun twice, the second time impacting the day of a top-10 competitor, on her path to a 30th-place finish in her NASCAR Cup Series debut in the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway. But that is an unfair representation of the full scope of what the 44-year-old accomplished this weekend.

Becoming the first female competitor in a NASCAR Cup Series race since Danica Patrick competed in the 2018 Daytona 500, Legge was in a nearly impossible situation as she was competing for a part-time "Open" team, Live Fast Motorsports, which usually only competes at Superspeedway events.

Phoenix Raceway is a technical one-mile oval, very different from the wide-open mash-the-gas-down tracks that the Live Fast team is used to competing at. After a trip to the infield care center following her race-ending crash on Lap 215, Legge explained that the race started off rough as the team attempted to make some changes to the car overnight, which ultimately made the car super hard to handle in the opening Stage of the event.

"It was a really rough start. We made some changes to the car overnight, and they were awful," Legge said. "And I was hanging on like the first stint. I was so loose, and I was just hanging onto it."

The car was so loose that she went for a ride on the exit of Turn 2 just four laps into the event.

However, after Legge got her bearings following a Lap 4 spin, the driver of the No. 78 Chevrolet and her team got a chance to make some adjustments throughout the opening Stage, and as the race went on, Legge found herself getting more comfortable behind the wheel of the race car.

"We kept making adjustments, and we kept making the car way more stable for me," Legge said. "And then at the end there, I felt like we were relatively quick there compared to the field. So, it wasn't bad. I wish we hadn't made the changes, but we were trying to find some pace, and we found it throughout the race, but it was a rough start."

While she ranked last in the 37-car field in practice speed, qualifying speed, and then again in lap speed during Sunday's race, Legge made drastic improvements throughout the weekend. Her first laps around the Phoenix Raceway were in the 32-second bracket, and in the limited amount of laps between Saturday's practice session, and the 210 laps she was able to complete in Sunday's race, Legge had worked her best lap time down to a 28.525 second circuit.

To put her drastic climb throughout the weekend in perspective, Legge's best lap in Sunday's race was just 0.081 seconds off the fast pace set by 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski, who had a best lap of 28.444 seconds.

And to put the equipment that she driving in perspective with that of Keselowski's, Live Fast Motorsports has never won a NASCAR Cup Series event. Keselowski's RFK Racing team has scored 143 wins in the NASCAR Cup Series, including six wins since the adaptation of the Next Gen car in 2022.

Unfortunately, Legge's improvement behind the wheel didn't result in a clean finish, as she once again made an error on Lap 215. Exiting Turn 2, Legge made contact with fifth-place runner Josh Berry, and spun out directly into the path of Daniel Suarez, who had nowhere to go but into the side of her No. 78 Chevrolet.

From start to finish, it wasn't a flawless debut for Legge, but the competitor feels there were plenty of good things to take away from her experience, and she hopes there will be another NASCAR Cup Series start someday down the line.

"Baptism [by] fire," Legge described the experience. "You know, I think there's a lot of positives to take from it. Obviously, there were mistakes made, but I learned so much, and hopefully, I get to come back and do it again."

Recommended Articles

feed

Published
Toby Christie
TOBY CHRISTIE

Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.

Home/News