Katherine Legge, a three-time winner in the IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship series, will make her NASCAR debut Saturday in the Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (3 p.m. ET on NBCSN).
It will be the first of two races Legge is scheduled to compete in this year for JD Motorsports. She also will compete on Aug. 25 at Road America.
Legge, 38, will be sponsored by Airtec, a Maryland-based aviation and technology integration company, and will drive the No. 15 Chevrolet.
A native of Guildford, England, who resides in Atlanta, Legge competes full-time in IMSA for Meyer Shank Racing racing in an Acura NSX GT3. She was recently announced as the first driver for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in the new Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy Series, a part of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship.
This year Legge has scored one victory and three more podium finishes in seven IMSA races and is ranked second in the GTD Drivers’ Championship.
“Making my Xfinity Series debut will be a huge challenge,” Legge said in a press release. “These cars are very different from what I’m used to driving in open-wheel and sports car racing, but I’ve built my career on diversity and going where opportunities take me. I hope to learn as much as I can at Mid-Ohio, and then apply that knowledge a couple of weeks later at Road America.”
Legge competed full-time in CART from 2006-7. She also has 11 IndyCar starts, with a best finish of ninth at Auto Club Speedway in 2012.
In November 2005, she was the first woman to test a Formula One car since Sarah Fisher in 2002.
Legge competed in the Toyota Atlantic Championship in 2005, winning the series opener in Long Beach to become the first woman to win a major open wheel race in North America. She finished third in the standings with two more wins and five podiums.
