Nascar’s pilot, Katherine Legge, said she has been receiving “hate mail” and “death threats” from car racing fans after she was involved in an accident that collected veteran pilot Kasey Kahne during the XFinity series race last weekend in Rockingham.
Legge, who began four Indy 500s, but is a relative rookie in stock cars, added during the Episode on Tuesday of his podcast “accelerator therapy” that “the inappropriate comments of the social networks that I have received are not only disturbing, they are unacceptable.”
“Let me be very clear,” said the British pilot, “I am here to compete and I am here to compete, and I will not tolerate any of these threats to my security or my dignity, whether it is on its way or outside it.”
Legge became the first woman in seven years to start a Cup race earlier this year in Phoenix. But his debut in the best Nascar series ended when Legge, who had already turned once, was involved in another turn and picked up Daniel Suárez.
His next start was the lower level Xfinity race in Rockingham, North Carolina last Saturday. Legge was good enough to make the field at the speed, but left the initial network due to the property points. Finally, he was able to take the JJ Yeley seat in the car No. 53 for Joey Gase Motorsports, who had to fight at the last minute to prepare the car for her.
Legge was well out of rhythm when the leaders were licking her, and when she entered curve 1, William Sawalich got into the rear of her car. That sent Legge touring, and Kahne had nowhere to go, running towards her along the bottom of the track.
“I gave him a lane (Sawalich) and the reason why the closing rhythm looks so high is not because I franted in the middle of the corner. I did not do it. I stayed in my line, I stayed my speed, which obviously is not the speed of the leaders because they are happening to me,” Legge said. “It loaded too much, which is the difference in speed that you see. A lane was subtracted and in me, which turned me around.”
Legge, 44, has experience in a variety of cars in numerous series. He made seven beginnings of Indycar for Dale Coyne Racing last year, and has run for several teams for more than a decade in the IMSA Sportscar series.
He has also dabbled in Nascar in the past, starting four Xfinity races during the 2018 season and two years ago.
“I’ve earned my seat on that racing track,” Legge said. “I have worked as hard as any of the other pilots, and I have been competing professionally for the past 20 years. I am 100 percent sure that the teams that used me, without me bringing any sponsorship money for most of those 20 years, did not do it as a Dei, or a gimmick, or anything else. It’s because I can drive a career car.”
Legge believes that the Vitriolo he has received on social networks is indicative of a major problem with women in motoring.
“Fortunately,” he said, “I have been in hardest battles than you in the comments sections.”
Legge has received a lot of support from those of the Carreras community. Indycar’s driver, Marco Andretti, applauded a critic on social networks that called Legge “not proven” in response to a publication about his story in Indy 500.
“It’s wild for me how many adult men speak badly about rude girls like this,” Andretti wrote in X, previously Twitter. “Does it make you feel more manly on the couch or something?”
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