Katherine Legge 'disappointed' about lack of young women in motorsports

This weekend, Katherine Legge will make her NASCAR Cup Series debut at Phoenix Raceway. She’s the first woman to make a start since 2018. Of course, Danica Patrick was the last woman to make a Cup start, and that is something that doesn’t sit right with Legge.

Katherine Legge is two years older than Danica Patrick. Both came up in sports cars and open-wheel racing along with a few other women at the time.

While NASCAR and IndyCar haven’t been havens for women drivers over the years, sports cars have typically had a healthy number of women in the ranks. Even that division hasn’t seen that change, though.

Speaking to the media at Phoenix, Katherine Legge was asked about that seven-year gap between herself and Danica making starts in the Cup Series. Does it make her upset? Does it make her proud to break that dry spell? Or does it, as Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports asked, piss her off?

“Kind of neither?” Legge answered. “Um, it’s disappointing that there aren’t more women [in] like IndyCar and NASCAR, the Cup [Series], sports cars. Really, there’s been kind of like a gap, you know. There was Sarah Fisher and Danica and me and Simona [de Silvestro], and like a bunch of good drivers in that era. And then there’s been really like this gap and this lull.

“So when I stop racing or maybe alongside it but definitely focused on it when I stop racing, I’d love to bring up the next generation. Because I think that there’s only a handful of us that have those shared lived experiences, and I think that my experience might be valuable in helping them navigate it.”

Katherine Legge continued on the subject, talking about her experiences. She is very open, honest, and someone who knows the good and bad of it all.

“Everybody says, ‘What’s it like to be a girl in racing?’ and I don’t know. Because I only have my own experience. I don’t know what it’s like to be a boy in racing, right? So, I know what my journey has been, and I know that it’s gone for me and it’s gone against me. I know where the struggles are and I know mentally what you have to do to overcome those struggles.

“So, I think, to me it just is. I would much rather people just saw me as another race car driver on merit, but that’s not reality. I’m not immune to or blind to the fact that it has helped me in ways, too. So, I’m just going to go out there and be Katherine and do the very best that I can.”

Hopefully, that disappointment can end soon. There are a number of women drivers in American motorsports right now. Tonight at Phoenix, Katherine Legge has a chance to watch Isabella Robusto. The two raced together at Daytona in the ARCA race until Legge was wrecked.