Katherine Legge didn’t wait long to get back in the saddle after being thrown.
Less than a month after getting wrecked in her first superspeedway stock-car start, the British racer will make her NASCAR Cup Series debut this coming weekend at Phoenix Raceway.
Live Fast Motorsports, BJ McLeod’s five-year-old team, will put Legge in the No. 78 Chevrolet for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500. She’ll be the first female racer in a Cup Series race since Danica Patrick competed in one final Daytona 500 in 2018.
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“Entering the NASCAR Cup Series is a dream come true,” said Legge, who said her recent stock-car efforts have “given me a renewed sense of vigor for this sport.”
The 44-year-old veteran sports-car and IndyCar racer entered the ARCA 200 at Daytona last month, but the effort didn’t last long. Legge was collected in a 15-car crash on Lap 4 of the 80-lap race.
NASCAR not totally new to Katherine Legge
Technically this will be Legge’s sixth NASCAR start. She ran four Xfinity Series races in 2018 and another in 2023, four of them on road courses, with a best finish of 14th at Elkhart Lake. Phoenix is a one-mile oval.
Legge’s 47 career IndyCar starts include four Indianapolis 500s. Most of her racing success has come in sports-car racing, where she’s been part of four class-winning efforts and drove for 12 Rolex 24 teams, including a runner-up run in the 2018 Rolex in an Acura GT3.
“This partnership reflects our commitment to providing opportunities for drivers making their way into the NASCAR Cup series in the Next Gen era,” sais Jessica McCleod, co-owner and CEO of Live Fast, which has made 130 Cup starts since 2020, most of them with BJ McLeod behind the wheel.
The team has posted just two top-10s during those years but made the most of NASCAR’s “charter era” of team ownership. After the 2023 season, McLeod sold his charter to Spire Motorsports for a reported $40 million and has been a part-time team ever since.
McLeod made five starts in the team’s car last year. After failing to make the field for the Daytona 500 to start this season, McLeod drove the car to a 22nd-place finish two weekends ago at Atlanta.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Indy 500, Rolex 24 veteran Katherine Legge to make NASCAR Cup debut
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