24-05-2025
EXCLUSIVE NASCAR star Katherine Legge on bouncing back from death threats and sexism to thrive in a man's world
The screenshots on her phone tell the story of the Rockingham incident last month. Dozens of sexist and disgustingly sexual comments. One Instagram direct message told her she should hang herself.
Some of the more tame comments call her a 'DEI hire', a 'drama queen', that she belongs in a kitchen.
The crime? Getting rear-ended by another driver who was going too fast into a corner, spinning her out, and sending her into the side of a NASCAR legend at a track that hasn't seen a stock car race in 21 years.
Clearly, they don't know Katherine Legge. They don't know the two-and-a-half decade long career that's taken her from karting, to becoming the fastest woman at the Indianapolis 500 and now, to NASCAR.
No, the mere existence of a woman in the sport offends the internet's sensibilities. Katherine Legge has fought and driven too hard and too long to care about your jibes.
You don't get to NASCAR, arguably the most contact-heavy form of top-flight racing in the world, by backing down from fights. Legge's done it her whole life. Now, she's sharing her story to a younger audience in the form of a children's book while working to prove she's worthy of a full-time drive.
The native of Haslemere, Surrey began in British open-wheel racing in Formula Three, Formula Renault and Formula Ford. Legge was the first woman to ever achieve pole in a Zetec race and even broke a lap record achieved by eventual F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen.
However in 2004, Legge's career hit the first of many similarly shaped road blocks: financing troubles.
As the story goes, Legge went to the UK offices of auto engineering firm Cosworth and refused to leave until she met with company boss Kevin Kalkhoven. After eventually meeting her, Kalkhoven gave her a seat with Polestar Motor Racing in the first three rounds of the 2005 Toyota Atlantic Championship.
Legge repaid the favor by winning the first race of the series. She'd go on to win twice more and finished third in the championship standings.
That same year, Legge would reach rarified air by testing a Formula One car - with Minardi giving her the opportunity roughly a month after the Italian outfit ran its last ever race at the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix, eventually being bought by Red Bull and becoming Toro Rosso.
Her career then took her to the Champ Car circuit, then to DTM, before jumping into an IndyCar seat in 2012 with Lotus Dragon Racing.
Legge scored a career-best finish in the Indianapolis 500 in her first attempt, climbing from a 30th place qualifying spot to finish 22nd in her rookie year.
However, the slow Lotus engines needed replacing mid-season and her drive became inconsistent - with Dragon only using one car per race after the Indy 500 for the rest of the 2012 season.
She'd return in 2013 with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and Team Pelfrey - once again climbing up the grid from a qualifying spot of 33rd to finish 26th.
Further Indy 500 starts followed in 2023 and 2024 after stints in various other circuits - most notably IMSA and Formula E plus a run in the 24 Hours of Daytona. However, Legge failed to finish either race due to a crash in 2023 and an engine failure in 2024.
There remained hope for her to return to the Indy 500 this year, however, she was unable to secure a seat for 'The Greatest Spectacle in Racing'.
'I had never been a driver that brought sponsors to a team,' Legge revealed at a sit-down interview in the New York offices of the Daily Mail.
'I'd always been a driver that got either hired by the team or the manufacturer, or somebody had called me, or I'd called them and they wanted me in the team. And so it was [2023] with Bobby [Rahal] that e.l.f. came on board, and that's how that started the ball rolling when they were like, "This is cool. We want to do more of this. We want to be primary. We want to do this massive activation at Indy. We want to do the drone show."
'And it took on a life of its own, which was super neat to see because it really did start that girl power movement that I'd been trying to do for two decades. I'd been helping other young drivers come up through.
'So I really want to do more Indy 500s. It's in my blood. But I also want to do all the things that make me uncomfortable again, that I want to do, that I can look back and go, I did NASCAR, I did this.'
After an absence from the Brickyard, Legge returned in 2023 but suffered a crash in the race
With IndyCar out of the picture, NASCAR beckoned. Legge was able to bring over her partnership with cosmetic company e.l.f. for a string of races in the Xfinity Series and the top-flight Cup Series.
While she'd dipped her toes in the pond with NASCAR before, 2025 is her first true season in stock car racing.
Race 1 was a Cup series drive with Live Fast Motorsports in the fourth race of the season at Phoenix.
A spin ended a race where Legge admits she made 'a couple of bad mistakes' - noting that the lack of practice doesn't allow her to get the best acquainted with a track or the car.
Then came Rockingham. After starting 31st, Legge says she was 'holding my line' going into a turn at the course that saw its first action since the fall of 2004.
As the leaders passed her, Legge says the driver behind her - William Sawalich - took too much speed into the turn and rear-ended her, spinning her car.
Kasey Kahne - a former Cup series Rookie of the Year, and 18-time Cup Series winner, and voted as one of the 75 greatest NASCAR drivers of all time - was making his first start in NASCAR since 2018. When Legge spun, Kahne didn't have time to react and hit the front end of her car. Kahne and Sawalich finished the race (14th and 25th respectively), but Legge did not.
Legge says, 'had the spin not taken Kasey Kahne out, it would have been a non-issue... but the fact that it did probably is what started a barrage of... dislike from the fans, let's say, which is good because at least they're passionate right?'
Passion is what drives the sport. It's what makes it entertaining. But passion goes too far.
Legge says that she found some of the sexist remarks 'funny', saying she laughed at some of the more ridiculous ones. She even says she got sent Venmo requests for money, but doesn't exactly know why.
'It doesn't bother me because I'm thick skinned,' she tells Daily Mail. 'I've been the only girl in racing for two decades.
'I know that people like Bubba [Wallace], and Denny [Hamlin], and Joey [Logano], and all those guys get the same thing. I think the difference is just with some of the ones that I got, they were very directed at my appearance on my body or my sexuality... It was amazing to me what makes people think these things up.'
Legge revealed the death threats she received in an episode of her podcast, 'Throttle Therapy'. Rather than be seen as complaining, Legge says she brought these up to voice the concerns of young girls - currently and in the future - who may come across similar abuse.
'We did that podcast episode and we commented on it and we brought it to light because whilst I might be thick skinned enough that it's like water off a duck's back, I don't know that if I was me 20 years ago, whether it would have been the same thing, right?,' Legge remarked.
'I don't know whether the girls coming up through, maybe that's a barrier to them because it's a lot. I just think that it's a factor of social media today, which I didn't necessarily have when I was first starting out, so I didn't get to see or experience of that.
'But this generation, I don't know whether they're hardened to it or whether it is something that bothers them and gets under their skin. I mean, it's a form of bullying at the end of the day, and I think that it's unacceptable.
'The fact people are anonymous and behind a keyboard makes them think that it's okay to type this stuff. But I can tell you not one person has said it to my face. So I think it's worth calling out.'
Legge also wants to highlight that other drivers aren't held to the same standard. She pointed out one driver, a rookie like herself, spinning and noted how 'everybody gives him a break'.
But when the Rockingham incident occurred, 'Somehow that was my fault because people said I was going too slowly in the middle of the corner. No, the closing speed looked so bad because he drove in way too quickly.'
Legge looked to bounce back from Rockingham at the next week's race at the venerated Talladega Superspeedway - considered one of the greatest tracks in NASCAR.
She was running in the top-ten for most of the race until Aric Almirola looked to make a pass, came across the front of her car, and wrecked them both.
After the race, Almirola admitted fault, saying 'she didn't do anything wrong, not at all, she's holding her line and she was there - I turned across her nose.'
The following week at Texas, she finished her first race on the circuit - crossing the line 32nd after getting lapped due to taking damage.
'I've been hit, I think, in every single NASCAR race. And there's a lot more contact in NASCAR that I have to get my head around to get used to,' she admitted.
Legge also says that her lack of experience with the cars puts her at a disadvantage to drivers who take part in a full calendar: 'They know the car like the back of their hand. It's part of them. They become one with the car.
'And so for me to jump straight in, I think we showed relatively fast speed.'
Even with a career as experienced as hers, Legge says there's still circuits and races she's dying to try - such as Mount Panorama and the Bathurst 1000 in Australia.
'I think I've got a few good years left in me yet,' says Legge - who will turn 45 this year. She says she's 'fitter and stronger than I've ever been.'
Throughout the discussion with her, Legge shared the ups of her career as well as the frustrations. The desire to keep racing has led her to racing disciplines of many kinds, but a lack of sponsorships has kept her from consistently sticking with one circuit or style.
Knowing the 'boys club' that is auto racing, it's not the wildest jump to think that the financial hardship and lack of consistency from team owners could be due to the fact that Legge is a woman.
She quickly and flatly denies this: 'Not at all. I think racing is really hard, no matter who you are - black, white, male, female, it doesn't matter.'
Legge points to the growing female audience in motorsports as a sign of change. She also says that being a woman in the sport serves as a 'unique selling point', but that it goes 'for you and against you'.
'I'm just really fortunate that people have given me the opportunity to go out there and learn and showcase. Hopefully then, I can prove myself enough that one of the top teams does think that it's commercially viable and we're going to get the results for them,' Legge says.
She continues: 'Throughout my whole career, it's been like scrapping and fighting and scratching my way into opportunities.
'I would love to have been with a Penske or a Ganassi or somebody like that for the whole time. And then you really see what you're capable of, right? Because I think it's really hard to judge people when they're not in that situation.'
