Katherine Legge objects to segregation of sexes in racing as she approaches second NASCAR Cup Series start

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When she made her NASCAR Cup Series debut earlier this year at Phoenix, Katherine Legge’s plan was to operate under the radar as she became the first woman in seven years to compete at the highest level of stock car racing. The plan, carrying modest expectations of logging laps and gaining experience, seemed sound enough. Only, it turned out that her debut fell on a certain occasion that made that approach impossible.

“Somebody was like, ‘You know it’s International Women’s Day on Saturday?’ And then I thought, ‘Oh shit,'” Legge told reporters at her introductory press conference. “‘There’s no way I’m flying under the radar.'”

From that point onward, Legge — a veteran British racer with a long career in open wheel and sports cars — has been under a microscope in transitioning to stock cars, which has proven to be a school of hard knocks. Legge’s Cup debut at Phoenix ended poorly, as a rookie mistake she made while trying to yield to lead lap cars caused her to spin in front of traffic, taking out a driver who had been running inside the top 10 in the process. Since then, Legge has focused on gaining experience racing Xfinity Series cars, taking her lumps through various adversities such as being collected in crashes not of her own making or not being fast enough to qualify.

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Speaking to CBS Sports at Nashville Superspeedway ahead of her second Cup start this weekend at Mexico City, Legge was honest in saying that her NASCAR experience so far has not gone well from an on-track standpoint. Off-track matters, however, have offered her a much different and more fulfilling outlook.

“I don’t think results-wise things are going very well at all. However, I think in reality behind the scenes things are going fine, like just how they’re supposed to go,” Legge told CBS Sports. “I’m gaining experience, we’re learning every weekend out, I’m loving NASCAR. And I really think there’s been a string of me just not being lucky and getting taken out in everybody else’s accidents.

“Whilst Phoenix was my fault — I take responsibility for that one — the slew of other ones I don’t think I’ve been responsible for.”

By this point, what Legge has been up against in moving to NASCAR after a career that has included racing in Formula 1 feeder series, setting the fastest qualifying effort for a woman in Indianapolis 500 history, and being part of an all-female team at the 24 Hours of Daytona is well-documented. The opportunity to make her Cup debut came along in just under two weeks’ time, thrusting her straight into competition with little seat time and on a small oval in Phoenix outside of her comfort zone. The end result ignited debate about whether NASCAR’s approval process for Cup drivers is too lax, and highlighted the drawbacks of the sport’s restrictions on on-track testing in the name of cutting costs for race teams.

Mastering the art of stock car racing

This time around is a different matter. Not only does Legge have much more experience under her belt from racing Xfinity cars, but she is also returning to a familiar track in Mexico City’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — where she won a Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY race in 2019 driving for Bobby Rahal — and a familiar discipline in road racing. And she has also gained a better understanding of the idiosyncrasies of racing stock cars, from race craft to procedure to the weight and handling of the vehicle itself.

All of that has come while being thrown into the deep end of live race action almost immediately, compared to the crossover the other way of Cup star Kyle Larson, who was given an exceptionally long runway to prepare to race in the Indianapolis 500 the past two years.

“If you look at how Kyle went and did The Double, they have a couple days’ testing in April, they have a test before that, somewhere like Texas to get ready for it. And then they have two weeks of testing and they have a rookie orientation test and they have all of this, so they’re super well-prepared by the time they get in an IndyCar to do the 500,” Legge said. “If you look at NASCAR, there is no such thing as any of that testing or any of the rookie tests or anything. They just make you go through their testing process, which isn’t super laid out — It’s very person dependent. 

“So I’m doing that two weeks of testing on the run-up to Indy by racing in different cars and different series, right? So it’s a very different way of approaching it, and so in a way I’m just learning and figuring it all out as I go.

“I think I feel more comfortable on a road course, because it’s what I’ve done for the past 20 years. But I love this oval racing and I think it’s so fun driving these cars. And learning is so fun, and I’m so motivated to learn all the things. And I think it’s definitely making me a better race car driver.”

In trying to transition to stock cars and earn the respect of the garage area, Legge has managed to earn the support and help of several, from her teammates at Jordan Anderson Racing like Jeb Burton and Blaine Perkins to Xfinity Series veterans like reigning champion Justin Allgaier and Jeremy Clements. Legge also pointed to Cup star Ross Chastain, her teammate at JD Motorsports during a previous stint racing NASCAR in 2018, as being especially helpful.

However, Legge’s aims in making her way into NASCAR and becoming the lone active female driver at the Cup level aren’t just to seek help or help herself. Rather, her goals for the next phase of her racing career are much larger, and center around shepherding the next generation of women in racing — a topic that animates Legge and brings her edge to the forefront.

“Honestly, it’s something that I’m really passionate about. Because it’s bullshit the way it’s happening at the moment,” Legge said. “And that I feel very strongly about.”

An era of stagnation

There was once a time where auto racing led the charge in women’s sports, as Legge belonged to a generation of female racers that included Sarah Fisher, Danica Patrick, Simona de Silvestro and more who competed at the highest levels of open wheel racing in IndyCar and Champ Car. And compared to other women’s sports, the impact of Legge’s generation of female racer was especially felt given that all of them competed against their male counterparts, going wheel-to-wheel with men and even going faster than them — as Patrick did when she became the first woman to win an IndyCar race at Twin Ring Motegi in 2008.

But as other women’s sports have begun to enter their own eras of prominence, motorsports has fallen behind as the next generation of female racer has not gained a competitive foothold, whether it be in IndyCar or in NASCAR. The past few years have seen several young female racers show promise only for their careers to fade and fall into the pitfalls that line the path for women in racing, whether it be sponsorship, life changes or the new variable of social media and all the distractions that come with it.

Legge pointed to the example of Jamie Chadwick, who switched to LMP2 racing despite success in Indy NXT after claiming she did not have the physical strength to race the current generation of IndyCar. “I call bullshit on that as well,” Legge said. “Just because I’ve been driving those cars and you can get strong enough.”

More than anything, Legge objects to the segregation of sexes in racing, as the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) has tried through efforts from the all-female W Series, to the F1 Academy for women in racing, to a proposed girls’ karting series that in Legge’s mind stands to harm their development by keeping girl racers separate from their boy counterparts and the best competition possible.

“If you’re not racing against the best, you’re not gonna be the best of the best,” Legge said. “It’s gonna be a girls’ series, and there’s absolutely no f—ing reason why there should be a girls’ series when we’re perfectly capable of racing against the guys. And so the level of that girls’ series is going to be lower than the level of the guys’ series, because they’re not racing against the best of the best. I think it’s rubbish.”

What frustrates Legge is she feels the example of others from her generation of female racers — namely Sarah Fisher, who Legge greatly admired as a “no bullshit” race car driver who wanted to be the best she could be regardless of if she was a man or woman — has gotten lost through the years. And she expressed particular disappointment in F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff, who Legge grew up racing against in go-karts and later DTM, for pushing the concept of all-female series along.

“She was a really good race car driver. And I don’t know why she is pushing the all-female aspect,” Legge said. “I thought that the F1 Academy and the FIA started that as a stepping stone for women to get into the sport that wouldn’t necessarily have gotten into the sport in any other way. Which I agreed with, OK? I hate the idea of segregation, but if it’s giving them a platform to spring off of to do other things, then that’s great because I want them to have the opportunity and I want them to go into F3, F2, IndyCar, whatever it may be.

“But now with this FIA inception of the female go-kart program, it’s obviously not for those reasons. So I’m really disappointed and I think it’s the end of an era. Because I don’t think unless the women coming up through go through the same really hard feeder series ranks that the guys go through, it’s not gonna produce the same results.”

Where the ideas of Legge and the FIA have split, NASCAR continues to offer a platform for Legge to compete as she sees fit, race against the best of the best in stock cars, and empower women in racing and beyond. And she does so with the support of her sponsors, e.l.f. Cosmetics, which aligns with and stands behind Legge’s ideals and a philosophy on femininity that she herself is living out at the top level of her profession.

“If you look at 100 years ago or more, you see all these badass women that could also be feminine, and they’re out fighting battles or getting shit prepared for wars, and they’re flying solo across oceans in an airplane like Amelia Earhart,” Legge said. “So you all of these women who were also very feminine, but they were also doing these really cool things. And then somewhere along the way, it got lost.

“I think what e.l.f. are doing are basically saying, ‘Hey, you can be anything that you want to be, you can be anybody that you want to be and still be good at what you do.’ And so they stand behind empowering women, and one of those women is me, and they give me the platform to go out and try to be the best race car driver that I can be.”

This news was originally published on this post .

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