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DAYTONA BEACH — She resisted any urge to hang a left at the backstretch chicane, so that’s a positive for the longtime Rolex 24 regular.
A better positive came shortly thereafter, when Katherine Legge posted the 10th-fastest speed in Friday’s ARCA Series practice session at Daytona International Speedway.
Her No. 23, Joe Farré-owned Chevy feels comfortable and fast — “I think I have a car capable of winning” — but after watching replays of recent ARCA races at Daytona, Legge knows it’ll take more than that for her to have a shot Saturday afternoon. Yes, the Chevy is quite capable …
“If we stay out of trouble and we’re lucky,” she said Friday afternoon.
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Legge was one of the 11 drivers with speeds between 180-181 mph in Friday’s practice, which replaced ARCA’s scheduled qualifying after Thursday’s practice was washed out. Per ARCA’s Daytona rules, if practice is rained out, the lineup is set by owner points (2024 final points, in this instance) and qualifying becomes a practice session instead.
Legge will start ninth when the annual 80-lap, 200-mile season opener takes the green flag shortly after noon Saturday. It’s part of a doubleheader with the Xfinity Series race later in the afternoon.
Katherine Legge has dabbled in stock cars before
Legge, a former regular in both sports-cars and IndyCar (including four Indy 500s), is not a complete stranger to NASCAR-style stock cars. She ran four Xfinity Series races in 2018 and one in 2023. Her only oval-track race was at Richmond, which, at three-quarters of a mile, is quite different from the 2.5-mile Daytona tri-oval.
“I wanted to have the ability to do more NASCAR-related stuff and stock-car racing,” the England native said. “And I spoke to Chevrolet, who put me in touch with this team.
“And this team, they’re so good. I’m beyond stoked to be driving the car and driving at my first superspeedway.”
Legge has competed in 12 Rolex 24s at Daytona and turned laps at better than 230 mph on Indy’s 2.5-mile oval. What she’s never done, however, is deal with bump-drafting, either giving or receiving. She practiced in some traffic Friday, but there was no bump-drafting. She’ll almost surely get a taste of it Saturday.
“I think it’s an art form, right?” she said. “Because you have to hit somebody in the right place on the straight-away. So it’s, just, you have to trust whoever is doing it with you.”
Confidence in Katherine Legge from atop the pit box
Her team owner liked what he saw Friday and thinks Legge is capable of learning quickly and spending time in the lead pack.
“What I saw from her today was a lot of discipline,” Farré said. “When she came back in, she basically reported that she was like 40-50% throttle on the whole deal. So she really showed the discipline to keep the car where she wanted to.
“I think if she demonstrates that kind of stuff tomorrow, you know she’s gonna ride up there in that top 10, and then all bets are off in those last few laps, right?”
Absolutely right, particularly at Daytona in February.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona tri-oval rookie Katherine Legge gets first ARCA start Saturday
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