Katherine Legge joins exclusive NASCAR-IndyCar club ahead of upcoming Cup appearance at IMS

Katherine Legge made history again in the world of motorsports by competing in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She is the only 21st person to compete in both the Brickyard 400 and the Indy 500.

After focusing primarily on IndyCar and IMSA sports car racing in the years that followed, Legge returned to NASCAR's top level in 2025. She made her return at the Phoenix Raceway’s Shriners Children’s 500, as the first woman to take the green flag in the NASCAR Cup Series’ Next Gen car, and the first woman to start a Cup Series race since Danica Patrick in 2018.

Legge was called in on short notice (under 10 days' notice) to drive the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet at the Phoenix event. Although her debut was challenging — spinning out twice and eventually retiring after 210 of 312 laps due to an accident with Josh Berry — Legge was happy with the experience and looking forward to being involved in NASCAR.

Daniel McFadin reported the achievement on X:

"Today Katherine Legge becomes the 21st person to start both the #Indy500 and the #Brickyard400."

Katherine Legge is a British racecar driver with a long history in motorsport around the world. Legge made her first start in NASCAR in 2018. She competed in four NASCAR Xfinity Series races in 2018 with JD Motorsports.

She made her NASCAR debut at Road America, finishing 14th, which was her best NASCAR race result at the time; during the rest of the summer, she also raced at Mid-Ohio and Richmond, finishing 28th in her oval racing debut out of 40 cars, and at Texas.

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Katherine Legge described the emotional impact of Indy 500's pre-race rituals honoring the military

Katherine Legge deeply feels the emotional impact of the Indianapolis 500’s pre-race tradition honoring fallen military service members. She described the experience as an "indescribable energy" that is hard to explain to others.

"It chokes me up every year. The first time I was there was actually in 2006. I was in the stands in turn one, and I remember just thinking, like, you can't experience this anywhere else, and you can't explain to anybody what this feeling is. And then standing on the grid for the first time and experiencing it, I was like, don't let it in. Put your blinkers on; don't let it in. You've got a race to run; don't focus on it," she said in the latest episode of the iHeart Radio Podcast, Throttle Therapy. "But like the hairs on your arms stand up, and it's this energy, and it's an indescribable energy, and it's so bizarre to me even now, and I love it," she added.

Legge first experienced this vulnerable moment in 2006 as a spectator, then on the starting grid, where she had to mentally block out the emotion to stay focused on racing.

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Edited by Rupesh