By David Morgan, Associate Editor
INDIANAPOLIS – Katherine Legge has a wild 48 hours ahead of her as she will attempt to be the first woman to run the Double – 1,100 miles of racing in one day between the Indianapolis 500 and the NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte.
On the IndyCar side, it’s business as usual as the 45-year-old Briton will be making her fifth start in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing driving the No. 11 HMD Motorsports with AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet, rolling off from the inside of Row 9 in 26th place.
Meanwhile, should she make it to Charlotte, it would be just her ninth overall Cup Series start and first on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s 1.5-mile oval driving the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet.
The bigger challenge however, could be contending with Mother Nature as inclement weather exists in the forecast for both races.
Currently, rain chances in Indianapolis increase as the day progresses from 30 percent up to 70 percent, with Charlotte currently hovering at chances of 70 to 80 percent, according to the National Weather Service.
“You know what, I look at it, and I’m like: Don’t look. Then don’t go down that rabbit hole,”Legge said of dealing with the weather. “It’s changing all the time. So I’m trying to be like what will be will be and be relaxed about it. But it doesn’t look great at the moment, I have to say.
“I don’t know what happens then, like it’s out of our control. If it’s bad at both places, do both get delayed and then the same amount? Does it get moved to Monday? Does it still count as doing the double if you do one race on Sunday and one race on Monday?
“There’s so many things that you have to just like put to the side and go it doesn’t matter. It will be what it will be. I’ll do my best with whatever situation is thrown at us.”
Weather also looks to be an issue on Saturday in Charlotte when the Cup Series is scheduled to practice and qualify to set the field for NASCAR’s longest night, something Legge is hoping will hold off to allow her to be able to get some seat time in the Next Gen car at a track she has never raced at before.
Practice and qualifying in Charlotte is scheduled for 1:30 pm and 2:40 pm ET, respectively.
“I am praying to all of the weather gods at the moment that we get practice. I desperately need practice in the Cup car,” said Legge. “It’s going to be my second mile and a half, I think, and maybe my fifth or sixth Cup start. I do not want to turn into turn one after the green without having driven Charlotte in a car I don’t know that well.
“So, there is a concern that it will rain [Saturday], and if practice and qualifying gets rained out, I’ve been frantically asking everybody, okay, what happens then? Can we run practice on Sunday? It would be the O’Reilly race on Sunday instead. So, they said no.
“Yeah, it’s less than ideal. Obviously, that doesn’t fill me with warm and fuzzies, but again, it is what it is. We committed to doing this thing, and we’re not going to not do it because I don’t feel ready. I mean, it’s too late for that.”
Legge noted that things haven’t gone smoothly thus far between travel woes on her promotional tour and getting the kinks worked out in her race car up through Friday’s Carb Day practice, but she is hoping to have all of that behind her to be able to focus forward to the feat that lays ahead.
“I think this week has been getting everything bad luck-wise out of the way early. We had a disaster traveling back from New York City. It took us like a day and a half. Then this morning’s practice was — if it could have gone wrong, it did go wrong,” said Legge.
“Hopefully now we know, and we’re in the clear travel-wise, car-wise, all the things. Get it out of the way today.”
She added that she would have liked to have more time to prepare with watching film and debriefing with her engineers, but time has not been on her side to be able to do that.
“I wanted to sit down and watch last year’s 600 and last year’s 500 and switch between the two and get my head in the game and spend time with my engineers,” said Legge. “I haven’t had that luxury, so it feels like we’re on our back foot a little bit.
“In all honesty, it’s not that much to do in Charlotte. I would have loved the opportunity to go over there and drive the sim again in preparation. Unfortunately, again, with travel and everything else, that didn’t happen.
“So, we will do our best, and I don’t know when I’m going to get the chance now because we’ve got a pretty packed schedule.
“I’ll figure it out. It’s either that or sleeping. It’s preparation or sleep. So, there’s got to be a compromise in there somewhere.”
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