{"id":21097,"date":"2018-08-08T10:10:58","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T15:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=21097"},"modified":"2018-08-11T17:14:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T22:14:00","slug":"sports-car-star-katherine-legge-to-make-nascar-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/08\/sports-car-star-katherine-legge-to-make-nascar-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports car star Katherine Legge to make NASCAR debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In her diverse and thriving career, Katherine Legge<\/strong> has raced GT cars, IndyCars, and IMSA sports cars. She\u2019s competed in the Indianapolis 500 and stood on the podium in the Rolex 24 At Daytona.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Katherine Legge. Photo by Brian Cleary\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

And this weekend the popular and talented Brit will make her NASCAR<\/a> debut in the Xfinity Series\u2019 Rock n Roll Tequila 170 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Saturday, August 11 at 3 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Then she\u2019ll return two weeks later to compete \u2013 alongside NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott \u2013 at the Xfinity road course race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

If it were up to Legge, should she secure sponsorship she\u2019ll gladly return to NASCAR in October to compete in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup race on the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.<\/p>\n

First, however, there is Mid-Ohio \u2013 where she will steer the No. 15 Airtec-sponsored JD Motorsports Chevrolet in her eagerly anticipated stock car debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019d really like to do, is do a couple of these races and hopefully learn and hopefully have done a good job and hopefully raise some money and do the ROVAL race at the end of the year,” Legge said. \u201cI know that\u2019s going to be a tall order, but I have my eyes on more that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legge\u2019s background and current job competing in IMSA\u2019s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series has provided lots of opportunity to know other former and current NASCAR drivers \u2013 all who have encouraged her to take this next step in her career.<\/p>\n

Andy Lally, the 2011 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year, is a good friend and former teammate. NASCAR competitor Justin Marks is currently a teammate on the Meyer Shank Racing GTD class team Legge drives for fulltime in IMSA.<\/p>\n

She has a win (at Belle Isle-Detroit) and four podium finishes so far this season in IMSA and is ranked second in the GTD class driver\u2019s standings. Last year, her first with the Acura NSX GT3 program, she and co-driver Lally had two wins, four podiums and a pole.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really lucky that I have some really good friends in racing,” Legge said this week. \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do NASCAR, but [over the years] some friends said \u2018no not now,\u2019 because it wasn\u2019t the right team or right series.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndy Lally actually helped put this two-race deal together. … it\u2019s going to start me off a little more low key and get the experience in driving a stock car. I\u2019m really excited and nervous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky I have Andy, and A.J. Allmendinger is a friend of mine and Justin Marks, my teammate in IMSA. So I\u2019ve got some really cool people to ask advice of so I\u2019m lucky for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking at her racing resume, the top-shelf credentials are certainly there for Legge. Now, she concedes, she needs time behind the wheel in a stock car. Her first laps in practice this weekend, will be her first laps ever in a stock car. As for the knowing the track, she finished runner-up in the GTD class at Mid-Ohio in the IMSA race there earlier this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndy [Lally] and I are planning on watching some previous races and going over things this week,” Legge said. \u201cBut that\u2019s the extent of it. I haven\u2019t been able to test, I haven\u2019t been able to get on the simulator. But the team is so professional and so good, hopefully they will help me through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she adds, \u201cI\u2019m not so much nervous about performance at Mid-Ohio but all those guys in the field are really talented with a lot more experience than I have. I just don\u2019t want to make any mistakes. That\u2019s goal number one. Minimize the mistakes at Mid-Ohio, analyze where I\u2019m at and go from there.”<\/p>\n

Legge also acknowledged with a laugh that the \u201cstyle\u201d of hard-nosed NASCAR competition \u2013 especially on road courses – may take a little getting used to. But she\u2019s absolutely game.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndy keeps saying, rubbin\u2019s racing” Legge conceded. \u201cAll I know from NASCAR is what my friends tell me, and what I see on television. I know some of my skills will translate but I\u2019m very humble in that I\u2019ve got so much to learn and these guys are so talented. Hopefully Andy will impart a little of his knowledge on me and I\u2019ll know how to draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky I grew up racing go-karts and raced GTs for a little while. There is some bumping in those, but not a lot. I\u2019m honestly going to try not to make any enemies.<\/p>\n

But, she added with a playful pause. \u201cIf they chose to play nice with me, then I\u2019ll play nice with them.”<\/p>\n

Legge left open the option of making more NASCAR starts in the future – perhaps beyond even road course venues. In fact, for all her good work on road courses, she scored a ninth-place finish in the Verizon IndyCar Series oval race at Fontana, Calif. (2012), which is also a NASCAR venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love oval racing, ever since I got the opportunity to drive an IndyCar on an oval,” Legge said. \u201cIt\u2019s something I love doing. \u2026  If the opportunity came up, I\u2019d love to, it would be a dream come true. My bread and butter has been sports cars for years. We\u2019ll see. I just want to get through Mid-Ohio first.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In her diverse and thriving career, Katherine Legge has raced GT cars, IndyCars, and IMSA sports cars. She\u2019s competed in the Indianapolis 500 and stood on the podium in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. And this weekend the popular and talented Brit will make her NASCAR […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":21099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[643,16],"class_list":["post-21097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-katherine-legge","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/KL.jpe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5uh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21100,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21097\/revisions\/21100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}