Legge Locks Into Chicago Street Race with Resilient Qualifying Run
It’s been nearly seven years since the last time a driver and team were sent packing after qualifying for a NASCAR Cup Series event, outside of the prestigious season-opening DAYTONA 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
With five unchartered teams on the entry list for Sunday’s Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Course, many expected that a battle for the final spot in the 40-driver field would come down to Josh Bilicki (in the No. 66 for Garage 66) and Katherine Legge (in the No. 78 for Live Fast Motorsports).
Instead, it was Corey Heim, a 16-time winner and the current points leader in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series that was sent packing in a fourth entry for 23XI Racing. Qualifying didn’t lack excitement, though.
When the red and black flags were displayed at the end of Saturday’s practice session, Heim found himself inside the top-10 on the speed charts, and presumably safe from the threat of failing to qualify for what would have been his fourth career start in the NASCAR Cup Series.
For Legge, a two-decade veteran of various disciplines of open wheel and sports car competition, the first laps around the streets of Chicago in a stock car (or any car at all) were tumultuous, but as the session progressed the driver of the No. 78 Chevrolet continued to pick up speed.
That was until the worst-case scenario unfolded: Legge crashed into the Turn 6 barrier, an incident that would remove her from the remainder of the practice session and put the Live Fast Motorsports crew to the test getting the e.l.f. Cosmetics Chevrolet repaired in time to qualify.
When the most crucial session of the weekend came around, it was Heim who made an uncharacteristic mistake by getting into the wall at the exit of Turn 10, bending the toe link on his Robinhood Toyota Camry XSE and destroying any speed in the No. 67.
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That one mistake locked Bilicki and Garage 66 into Sunday’s Grant Park 165 and gave Katherine Legge (the only one of the five open teams in the second group) a clear target lap time to shoot for.
Yes, there were several hair-raising moments, a couple of major slides through corners, and at one point contact with the outside wall, but the Guildford, England-native was able to lay down a lap time two tenths of a second quicker than Heim, and good enough for a 33rd starting spot.
“I tried my best to mess that qualifying up,” Legge told Danielle Trotta. “Honestly, I think it was a lot of pressure to come in with only 20 minutes of practice on a street course where there is no room for error to try and put it into the show.”
“I actually feel pretty good about it now, having done that. It would have been a lot faster had I not of kept nicking the walls, I gave my crew a lot of work to do, but I just had to keep pushing and put it in the show, which we did, so I’m proud of them and I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow and a little bit less stress.”
Legge has spent the year focusing on competing in NASCAR’s National Series and has found the transition to be slightly difficult. In four of her five starts in the Xfinity Series this year, the 44-year-old driver has failed to finish, with a best result of 32nd at Texas.
The NASCAR-based program has also included a part-time effort with Live Fast Motorsports, which included a 30th-place finish after a crash at Phoenix, and a 32nd-place finish at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez earlier this month.
Legge will return to the NASCAR Cup Series for events at Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and Richmond, while also running an additional NASCAR Xfinity Series event for Jordan Anderson Racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway later this month.
By qualifying for Sunday’s Grant Park 165, Legge becomes the first woman to start a street course event in the NASCAR Cup Series, a process which she described as being more stressful than qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 (something she has done four times).
“It’s very much drinking from a firehose [in NASCAR] and just trying to find my feet and get better, and the only way you can get better is with laps,” said Legge. “And we don’t have any practice so you have to get better in the race, so I have to put it in the show, so it’s like this vicious circle, but I really appreciate everybody’s support and it means the world to me.”
Legge will roll from 33rd in Sunday’s Grant Park 165, where she hopes to have the best run of her NASCAR Cup Series career, thus far, after making a valiant effort to put Live Fast Motorsports and her sponsors on the grid.
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Joseph Srigley covers NASCAR for TobyChristie.com, Racing America, and OnSI, and is the owner of the #SrigleyStats brand. With a higher education in the subjects of business, mathematics, and data analytics, Joseph is able to fully understand the inner workings of the sport through multiple points of perspective.