When my daughter brought the mail in the other day and put the new AutoWeek magazine on my desk, I noticed the top tag line right away. It read: "DANICA LOOK OUT: Kathrine Legge has won three times this year in open-wheel races, PLUS: 5 more fast women to watch.
As I leafed through to the Motorsports section, I found a story entitled "A Lot To learn," written by J. P. Vettraino. Kathrine Legge (pronounced leg) has won three events in 10 starts in the Toyota Atlantic Championship Series. She stands a great chance of winning the Toyota 2005 season championship and is eyeing a move up to the Champ Car Series for 2006.
The pretty 25 year-old racing star is just getting planted firmly into a racing seat, and at the present, she lacks the knowledge of racing other drivers and the track. You can only obtain this knowledge/skill by experience and the test of time. Hear-say and class room learning is only a small part of the big picture, if one plans to make career out of race driving. Given some luck and solid backing; in a couple of more racing seasons, Legge could be mastering racetracks in the top series with state of the art equipment, and should be a sure starter for a few Indy 500 events.
The article went on to mention some other women who are carving niches for themselves in the racing world. The first two listed are familiar to me because of their NASCAR affiliation. Erin Crocker, age 24, is under the tutelage of team owner Ray Evernham, racing under the Evernham Motorsports flag in the NASCAR Busch Series, USAC, and ARCA.
Debora Renshaw, age 28, is now racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. She has the distinction of being the first woman to lead a lap in the Truck Series and has three top ten finishes in the ARCA/RE MAX Series. She was once scheduled for a NASCAR Busch Series ride, but some bad luck and a terrible deadly accident during testing sidelined her opportunity.
Another NASCAR hopeful that I'm not familiar with is Allison Duncan, age 24. Allison drives in the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series, backed by NASCAR's Richard Childress racing (as is Sarah Fischer) and recently won a NASCAR Late Model event.
Alison Macleod, age 16, is setting the track on fire in the USAC Ford Focus Midget Series and Karts. She recently won a midget event starting from the pole, leading all 50 laps. She is under contract with Ford Racing's Female Driver Development Program.
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